Six Degrees
by crystal rose2
Summary: AU: Serena Lombard and Darien Shields are carrying on a May-December office romance. How will this affect the lives of those they know and those they don't?
1. Prologue

Serena sat at her desk, busily shuffling papers around in a concerted effort to look busier than she really was. It was Friday afternoon; the sun was shining gloriously upon the bustling metropolis below and Serena was stuck inside trying to keep up the pretense of working when her mind was on other matters such as rollerblading in the park or sunbathing on the roof of her four story apartment building.  
  
She sighed, going over all the activities she could be doing on this beautiful summer day had she not been chained to her desk thanks to the internship that had gotten her a spot in one of the country's-no, the world's-most prestigious advertising agencies. MediaWorks Advertising had been responsible for ad campaigns that convinced the mass audience that what they saw was _really_ what they got; that luxuries were in fact necessities which were not only easily affordable but also readily available and that media hype was just that, a buzz word coined by social analysts who had nothing better to do than question the buying patterns of the target demographic. They were in the business of pulling the wool over people's eyes, convincing them it was for their own good and they were damn good at it.   
  
"Ms. Lombard, could you step into my office, please?"  
  
Serena's heart fluttered against her chest as her boss' deep voice broke through her summer fantasies via the intercom on her desk. She pressed the button allowing her to talk. "Right away Mr. Shields."  
  
She was already standing up and straightening her clothes when his voice crackled through the speaker once again. "Don't forget to bring the IBM file with you, please." She nodded, forgetting the fact that he could not see her. She strode over to her desk, rummaging around the numerous files until she found the one her boss asked her for.   
  
Serena walked out of her tiny cubicle, only to bump into Amara Jones, her roommate, internship partner and best friend.   
  
"Where are you going in such a hurry, Serena?" the tall blonde asked. A quick glance at both women told one that while both were feminine to the core, possessing dangerous curves and beauty to boot, the taller one had an air of masculinity about her that tended to intimidate and challenge, everyone she faced.  
  
Serena blushed uneasily and looked down at the carpet, studying the tiny gold dots interspersed evenly on a rich navy blue background. "Mr. Shields just called me into his office. I think he wants to discuss the IBM account." To prove her point, she waved the folder pointedly in front of her friend's face. "Well, I better go, Amara. Mr. Shields doesn't like to be kept waiting."  
  
Amara watched Serena scurry away like a frightened rabbit to their employer's office. She raked her fingers through her closely cropped blonde hair and sighed in obvious frustration. Things between them had been tense to say the least ever since that night. Amara frowned, wanting to slam her fist into the light grey wall of Serena's cubicle. She had messed up; she knew that. For the past seventy-two hours, all Amara could think of was the look of disbelief in her best friend's eyes after she had confessed the secret she had been keeping in the two years they had known each other. She remembered in vivid detail the look of shock and repulsion on Serena's face when she had done the unforgivable. She had kissed her best friend on the lips in a futile effort to show her just how much she loved her.  
  
What did Serena do? She ran. She ran from her, the apartment they shared, and, Amara was positive, her life forever. Serena had not slept in the apartment ever since that fateful night, only coming back to collect some clothes and basic necessities once she was sure Amara had gone to work the next day.   
Amara watched as Serena practically flew down the hallway leading to Mr. Shields' office. She sighed and went back to her own cubicle, right across Serena's, convinced that she had just ruined the best thing in her life by telling Serena that she was in love with her.  
  
Serena took a few calming breaths as she stood outside Mr. Shields' door. She could feel Amara's eyes watching her intently and felt a flicker of annoyance and pity for her friend. She just didn't feel that way about Amara; not the way Amara wanted her to. Serena's face burned with a mixture of embarrassment and betrayal. Embarrassment that her friend had been in love with her for two years and she had been none the wiser, and betrayal because she thought they kept no secrets from each other.  
  
She did not know that not only was her friend a lesbian, she was also deeply in love with her. What was she supposed to say to that?  
Serena cleared her throat. She had already delayed going into Mr. Shields' office long enough, despite knowing the fact that he did not appreciate being kept waiting. She raised her hand and knocked timidly on the oak door.  
  
"It's open," he called from inside.  
  
She nervously unbuttoned her conservative peach-coloured blazer, revealing the soft, white silk blouse she wore underneath and opened the door. "You wanted to see me, sir?" she asked in a voice loud enough for Ivy, Mr. Shields' personal secretary stationed right outside his door, to hear.  
  
"Yes, please close the door," he quietly ordered, getting up from behind the desk. Serena obediently closed the door softly, locking it. No sooner had she done so did she feel his strong hands grabbing her waist, turning her around so that she faced him as he claimed her lips with his own.  
  
They kissed fervently for a few moments before they broke apart, the need for breath overcoming their need for each other. Serena smiled, all worries about Amara fleeing her thoughts as if they were never there to begin with.  
  
"I've been waiting for that all day, Darien," she purred seductively, nipping at his bottom lip gently with her teeth.  
  
"Sorry, Love. I had meetings all day." He said this even as he slid her blazer off her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor in a heap, and began to unbutton her blouse ever so slowly.  
  
"That's okay, honey. I'm just glad you're back," she replied huskily, shivering as the air hit her flesh when the blouse followed her blazer to the floor.  
He glanced appreciatively at the white lace bra that offset her honey coloured skin. "So beautiful," he murmured to himself.  
  
He led her to his desk, sweeping away all the paperwork that littered its surface. Catching her worried glance, he grinned. "Don't worry; nothing I can't fix later." So saying this, he lay her down reverently and began an assault on her willing body with his full sensual lips.  
  
Serena couldn't think, a usual occurrence that was the precursor to every lovemaking session with Darien. Granted, she had only been making love with him for three days, ironically starting on the night that Amara had confessed her secret.  
  
She moaned as Darien pressed his lips on her navel, loving the feel of his hands over her skin. She loved this man who was not only her boss but also her mentor in the competitive world of advertising. This man was not just her lover but also her father's best friend.  
  
And at forty-five years of age, twenty-three years her senior, Serena was convinced that this man was her soul mate.  
***  
AN: Well, it's a story I've had on my computer for a while but haven't really had time to continue. Hopefully, now that I've taken the step of submitting it here, I'll be more motivated to continue. I'd appreciate feedback on this story, if only to tell me that I haven't been wasting my time on a crappy plot. The first chapter is in the works but it's been on the backburner in favour of other writing projects (IE: Wounded Souls). I guess that's enough rambling from me; thanks for reading. Oh yeah, I don't own Sailor Moon. ^^; 


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One  
  
The third floor offices of Seattle-based Global Advertising buzzed with a furor not seen since the up-and-coming ad agency managed to wrangle the Pepsi account from their biggest competitor, MediaWorks, one of *the* biggest ad agencies in the country. Hailed as the biggest advertising coup of the year, Global execs gleefully thumbed their noses at MediaWorks execs on their way to accepting multiple Clio awards in front of an appreciative audience. If only they hadn't been so cocky that night, and every night since their win, they might have been able to stave off what the media giant's head honchos had in store for them. They got too big, too fast.   
  
And the big boys at MediaWorks didn't like that one bit.   
  
Enter Greg Labella, age 35, dark brown hair and darker brown eyes, mild-mannered unless provoked, and Global Advertising's soon-to-be Director of Marketing-if the promotion he was in line for panned out. He prayed it would. Actually, it was more like sacrifice-a-virgin-on-the-altar-of-Global-Advertising, would-give-his-right-arm-for-it, would-worship-any-deity-above-or-below-ground kind of prayer. All these things he was ready and willing to do if only he got that promotion his boss had been dangling in front of him like a big, juicy sausage in front of a starving mongrel. As of right now, however, he was but a shaky rung on the stepladder of success.   
  
At least he had his own cubicle.  
  
Four years, two months and seventeen days. That was how long Greg had been pushing paper at Global, taking countless *thorough* notes during meetings, staying up till all hours of the night to finish a report just so his idiot boss could go out to dinner with his bleach-blonde trophy wife. All that shitwork would finally pay off once his boss uttered those two words he had been longing to hear.  
  
"You're fired." Greg blinked stupidly at the pot-bellied man sitting across from him. Those were definitely *not* the words he had been expecting. Had the man said "You've just won a million dollars!" or "I'm going to have your baby, and the whole world's invited to the party!" maybe Greg would have an easier time understanding what just happened.  
  
"I'm what?" he rasped, stuck in the middle of disbelief and shock. Numbly, he searched the office for a likely place to hide a camera. He wondered whose sick idea of a joke this was. Probably that bitch Anna from accounting. She was still pissed when he wouldn't have a quickie with her in the copy room. Vindictive slut.  
  
"Well, not really fired," his boss amended and Greg sighed with relief, missing his boss' grim smile. He knew it. "MediaWorks has taken over the company and they're taking no prisoners. Those lousy bastards," he swore. "I have to pay child support *and* three alimonies. How do they expect me to live?"  
  
Greg was in no mood to hear the futile whining of a man who couldn't keep his dick in his pants long enough to settle his divorce cases. "And where does that leave me?" he asked, feeling that vein in his temple throbbing.   
  
"Well, that means we have to let you go," the man answered regretfully. "We've just gotten a memo from MediaWorks saying that all employees with less than five years' working experience with Global are to be laid off." He handed the memo to Greg's outstretched hand.  
  
"Attn: Management heads of Global Advertising," Greg read. "Please be advised that in light of the MediaWorks takeover of Global Advertising, any and all employees with five years or less working experience with Global Advertising are to be laid off with a severance package proportional to number of years served. The following is-ARG!" Greg crumpled up the memo and hurled it across the room.   
  
"Hey, I needed that!"   
  
Greg whirled on the man who was no longer his boss and had one purely evil thought: 'I no longer have to kiss this jerk's ass.' With nothing left to lose, Greg turned to the man who had jerked him around by the balls-figuratively speaking, of course-for four damn years and was satisfied to see the his prick boss' discomfiture.   
  
He advanced, stalked like a panther to his prey, towards the desk, and leaned towards the squirming mass of blubber and sweat in front of him. "Before I go, I must congratulate you on your recent marriage. She was a great fuck and that tattoo on her ass...what a turn-on." He backed off, smirking when a pudgy, shaky hand made its way towards the phone to call security. Pathetic.  
  
Greg sneered and walked towards the door, barely listening to his former boss shouting threats and obscenities at his back. Before he reached the door, he paused to pick up a crumpled piece of paper by the Gucci shoes he squandered his last paycheck for. Had he known he was going to be jobless within two weeks of his extravagant purchase, he would've put the money towards better things like food and rent, maybe sponsor an orphan in a third world country.  
  
Fuck the orphans. Greg was looking out for number one and he didn't want a kid-biological or sponsored-standing in the way of that.  
  
And so, ball of paper in one hand, he opened the door with the other to face two apprehensive-looking security guards who were probably a couple years shy of their retirement. He fisted the piece of paper and shot them a wry grin, holding up the other hand in a gesture of compliance. He allowed the two geriatric men to escort him to his cubicle to pack up his meager belongings, all the way down to the lobby in silence, before showing him very politely to the door.  
  
Outside, the city sounds pounding in his head, Greg smoothed out the paper he clutched in his hand against the smooth granite wall of his former workplace. He scanned the wrinkled document, scoffing at the paltry amount being offered in the severance package and the convoluted words that really said "You're a screwed son of a bitch without a job". But he wasn't about to argue semantics. No, all he really cared about was the name of the bastard who signed the death warrant on thousands of jobs.   
  
They could try to justify their decision by saying that too many people on the payroll minimized job efficiency, but Greg knew that was just a bunch of corporate bullshit they threw around to ease their guilty consciences and public outcry. They didn't care that there were people in there that needed those jobs and were actually good at doing it, nor did they care that the money they saved was money that poor schmucks like him needed to keep the IRS and bill collectors off their backs for one more month.   
  
His eyes finally drifted to the bottom. Darien Shields, Chief Financial Officer. So now he had a name to go along with the image of a greedy executive cultivated in his mind. Carefully, deliberately, Greg folded the piece of paper and placed it into the inner breast pocket of his suit. He was going to pay Darien Shields, CFO, a visit real soon.  
  
***  
  
Hundreds of dollars spent on age-defying products, skin-smoothing lotions, wrinkle-defense creams, and ammonia-free hair dyes and what does Irene Lombard find while getting ready before dinner? A gray hair. The third one she found this week. She should have known better than to be suckered by all the pretty packaging at the drug store but *dammit*, she needed something besides plastic surgery to stall the hands of time. Debating whether or not she should pull that hair out, and remembering that old wives' tale about plucking a gray hair only to have two more grow back in its place, she decided she couldn't afford to take that chance. Besides, she thought, the only people who bought into the plastic surgery scam were the truly desperate or the truly ugly. She didn't think she fit into either category.  
  
But when had she gotten so old looking? She was only 44 and already the crow's feet around her eyes were becoming more pronounced, and her skin was starting to sag. And...she poked her breast with a French-manicured finger. Dear God, they were starting to go south, too. She blamed the Santa Monica sun for her rapid aging. How was she supposed to know that smearing baby oil on her fair skin to achieve that golden California glow would result in age spots, wrinkles, and a high risk for skin cancer? Skin cancer. What a joke. Kids these days now got their tans from a bottle. The miracles of modern science. People are dying of AIDS but at least their kickass bottle tans kept them from looking deathly pale.  
  
She sighed. When had she become such a cynic? Here she was, a middle-aged mother of two beautiful grown girls, married to a man she loved very much, and still she wasn't content. Her mother was right; she should've saved the sex until marriage. If she had, she wouldn't have found herself a pregnant college student dropout at 19, married to Ken. It's not that she didn't love Ken, she did; but she had dreams of being a published author, dreams that came to an abrupt halt the second she found out that she was pregnant. Mina was born six months after they married and Serena followed two years later.   
  
Now, 25 years later, her children had left her to pursue their own careers, and Ken was at the height of his career as a photojournalist. And she was stuck at home, dusting her Depression-era green glass collection and dreaming of being Erica Kane from All My Children-except her version wouldn't be so slutty.  
  
But you can't be Erica Kane, or at least lead a life similar to her, without being a slut. And, let's face it: being a slut was half the fun of being Erica Kane. Not that Irene *wanted* to be a slut...  
  
'Irene, old girl, it's too late for regrets' she thought, applying lipstick and dabbing perfume behind her ears. She stood, smoothing out her dress, knowing that her husband would love to see her in it. It was old, but it still fit, and for that she was proud. 'At least I still have my figure,' she thought, twirling around to study her backside. 'Yep. Still got it.'   
  
The smell of roast leg of lamb wafted upstairs from the kitchen, her specialty. They were having a special dinner that night to welcome her husband Ken's best friend from college back to California, transferring into LA from the New York branch of the company he worked for. A widower for a number of years, he was bringing his two daughters with him to dinner that night to meet their family.  
  
"Honey," Ken called from downstairs, "Serena's home."  
  
"Coming!" Irene took one last look in the mirror and flipped her reflection the finger. 'Take that, you bitch.' She went downstairs to greet her daughter, cackling evilly to herself.   
  
***   
  
"So what do you know about this guy, Mina?" Serena asked, polishing the silverware.  
  
Mina shrugged disinterestedly. She couldn't care less about this dinner or her meeting her father's friend and his family. She wouldn't even be here if her father hadn't put his foot down and insisted that she take one night out of her busy schedule-this said in a sarcastic tone-to have dinner with her family and their guests. To Serena, she said, "What's there to know? He's dad's age, has two kids, and is a corporate hotshot." Her sister could be so annoying sometimes.  
  
Serena sighed and went back to her polishing. Mina could be such a pain in the ass when she doesn't get her way sometimes. It's not like she's got a job or busy with school; she's an unemployed aspiring actress, for God's sake. With probably less than fifty dollars to her name, who was Mina to turn down a free meal?  
  
Seconds later, both sisters heard the rumble of a vehicle pulling into their driveway. The streak of headlights across the windows confirmed that. They hurriedly set the table while their parents answered the ringing doorbell.  
  
"Darien! It's great to see you again!" Ken exclaimed, grabbing the man's hand and shaking it excitedly. The man Ken called Darien laughed heartily, his deep voice sending chills of an unknown emotion down Serena's spine.  
  
"Ken, you haven't changed a bit," he replied as he pulled the man in for a hug.  
  
As Serena was watching her father and his friend exchanging pleasantries, she felt Mina sidle up close to her ear. "Whoa, check that guy out. I can't believe that hottie is Dad's age!"  
  
Serena nodded slowly, assessing the man standing in their doorway. When her sister was right, she was right. Although her father was a handsome 45-year old man, he looked very much his age whereas his friend looked no older than his mid 30s. He towered over their father by at least four inches and, from what Serena could tell under the black leather jacket he wore, had broad shoulders. Flecks of gray peppering the ebony hair at his temples made him look distinguished, and his cobalt blue eyes were razor sharp.   
  
"What I'd do to have that man between my legs tonight," Mina whispered in her ear.  
  
Serena covered her mouth with her hand and elbowed her sister in the ribs. "Shut up, Mina! That's dad's friend!"  
  
Mina snickered, thoroughly enjoying her sister's reaction. "Yeah, who wouldn't want to be his friend?"  
  
"You're insane." Yet she found that she couldn't take her eyes off the man long enough to say it to her sister's face.  
  
"No," Mina replied speculatively, "I'm horny. Stop pretending to be so shocked, Serena; one would think you were a virgin. Oh don't try to deny it," she said hurriedly, "I read your diary two nights after your senior prom."  
  
"I wasn't going to deny it," Serena muttered, annoyed that Mina had read her very private thoughts on one of the most special nights of her life. She had long since broken up with Michael, but she still looked back on their time together with fondness. "I was going to say before I was rudely interrupted, that I had to agree with you. Dad's friend is good-looking...for a man his age."  
  
"Man his age, nothing," Mina snorted. "Now if you'll excuse me, I believe introductions are in order." She sauntered over to the foyer and boldly smiled at their guest. "Daddy, you haven't introduced us yet."  
  
Ken smiled at his daughter and beckoned Serena to come closer. "Darien Shields, I'd like to introduce you to my daughters, Mina and Serena. Girls, this is Mr. Shields."  
  
Darien shook each girl's hand and nodded at the two girls, whom Serena had just noticed, standing right behind him. "Raye, Heather, come say hello."  
  
The shorter, and obviously younger, of the two approached Serena and smiled shyly. "Hi, my name is Heather. It's nice to meet you."  
  
Serena smiled back. "Hi Heather. So this must mean that you're Raye," she said to the other girl. Although both girls had jet black hair, Heather kept hers in a sleek chin-length bob, while Raye's purple-streaked hair trailed down her back all the way to her waist. "Welcome to our home."  
  
"Thanks," she murmured absently, watching Mina boldly lay her hand on her father's forearm to take his coat, her periwinkle eyes flashing dangerously.  
  
Sensing a potentially volatile situation arising, Serena ushered the girls inside and took their coats, making small talk and generally wishing that her sister could keep her hands to herself. She stole a quick glance at her father, and was relieved when he looked none the wiser. Her mother, however, was glowering at Mina, who pretended not to notice.   
  
Oblivious to his daughter's designs on his friend, Ken led them to the living room where he served drinks before dinner was served. For the next fifteen minutes, Ken and Darien reminisced about the 'good old days' while Mina daydreamed about having her long, slender legs wrapped around Darien's waist; Irene scuttled back and forth between the kitchen and the living room to check on the roast, and Serena tried her best to entertain Raye, who was openly glaring at Mina, and Heather, who needed little prodding to come out of her shell.   
  
Serena looked up when Mina laughed ostentatiously, and cringed. 'She's faking it,' she thought snidely, and was surprised to see Raye and Mina giving each other death glares. Mina caught Serena's eye and smirked at Raye, before leaning in closer to the girl's father and even going so far as to gently place her hand on his knee. She rolled her eyes and pictured the marquee on this particular production: The Slut, starring Mina Lombard. She could just imagine the reviews.  
  
Thankfully, Irene reappeared from her recent trip to the kitchen. "Folks, dinner is served."  
  
Everyone filed out of the living room in an orderly fashion, Raye and Serena at the very back. Before Serena had a chance to step through the door, Raye held onto her arm with a surprisingly strong grip. "Is your sister usually so forward around strangers?"  
  
'Yes,' she wanted to reply, but the sense of family solidarity ran deep in her veins. "She's an actress," she replied instead. As if that could explain Mina's behavior.   
  
Raye narrowed her eyes and tossed her bountiful hair over her shoulder. "Someone should tell her she sucks at it," she said, pushing past Serena to leave the room.  
  
"Believe me, we have," Serena muttered and followed the stormy-eyed teenager to the dinner table.  
  
"So, Mina," Darien began, settling himself into his seat beside her. "What are your plans for the future?"  
  
Mina shot Raye a nasty look across the table, and ran her finger suggestively up and down the stem of her wine glass. "Well, I'm in between jobs right now, but I have a few auditions lined up. I'm an actress," she added for Darien's benefit. Serena rolled her eyes; Irene and Raye fumed silently in their seats; Darien hid an amused grin, and Ken and Heather were blissfully unaware of drama playing out in front of them as they dug into their meals.  
  
"Oh, have you been in any productions I may know of?" Darien asked politely.  
  
"Well," Mina drawled. "I've only just decided to make acting into a career, but I have had a few minor roles in some independent movies. Before that, I was doing some modeling for artists at the local college."   
  
Serena raised an eyebrow. Mina sure was good at spinning a tale; too bad she didn't tell the whole story. After dropping out of college in her first year, she bummed around, doing odd jobs until she moved on to the next phase of her "life path". The "modeling" she did was *nude* modeling, and the portraits produced from that class could hardly be called art. The indy films were borderline porno, and her classic California looks-blonde hair, blue eyes, ample bust size-typecast her into roles that required little dialogue and plenty of gratuitous half-frontal sex scenes. It took their father three months to look Mina in the eye after watching her first movie and there were times Serena sensed a deep disappointment from her father every time Mina mentioned going to another audition. As far as she knew, that first movie was the last one that Mina had a role in that either of her parents watched.  
  
Raye snickered and Darien shot her a look that immediately had her eyes back down on her plate, although it was hard to miss the tiny smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth. Darien dug into his mashed potatoes and smiled encouragingly at Mina. "Well, good luck with that. I know from my own line of work that the only way to make it in the media industry is through a lot of hard work, perseverance, and talent."  
  
Mina dabbed delicately at the corner of her mouth with her linen napkin. "And tell us, Darien-I *can* call you Darien, right?" When he nodded his assent, she continued, "What do you do?"  
  
"Well, I was recently promoted from VP Finance to Chief Financial Officer, hence the move from New York to LA," he explained, grinning when Ken laughed and told everyone how bad Darien was at Advanced Accounting in college. "The MediaWorks head office is located in downtown LA so we had to move here."   
  
Serena's head snapped up. "Excuse me, Mr. Shields, but did you just say you worked at MediaWorks? As in MediaWorks Advertising Agency?"  
  
"It's Darien, Serena, and yes, I work for MediaWorks Ad Agency. Why do you ask?" Beside him, Mina's eyes narrowed. She didn't like where the conversation was heading.  
  
Serena flushed when everyone's eyes turned to her. "Well, my friend, Amara, and I are going to be interning at MediaWorks for our last year in school."  
  
"No kidding," Darien said, surprise coloring his words. "Do you know which department you and your friend will be working for?"  
  
"Well, we won't know until we talk to our internship advisor. Michelle says that we'll probably end up doing odd jobs in each department." At this point, Ken nodded enthusiastically at Darien.  
  
"Serena and her friend were recommended for the internship program for being in the top five percent of their class," he bragged, glad that at least *one* of his daughters was doing something worth mentioning. "Out of 600 people in the Mass Communications program, Serena and Amara managed to get two of the twenty spots they were offering for the internships."  
  
"Daddy," Serena began, her face turning red. A quick glance told her that Mina's face was also turning red, although for very different reasons.  
  
"You know, Darien, I've always wanted to do commercial work," Mina said, trying to turn the focus back on her, "but I don't know whom to get in touch with."  
  
Darien looked at her blankly, his attention divided. "Well, you have an agent don't you?" She nodded. He raised his eyebrow pointedly at her and turned back to Serena, missing the dark scowl on Mina's face. "I'm impressed, Serena. Let me see what I can do to get you and your friend better spots at the office. I wouldn't want you two to be unpaid gofers after all your hard work."  
  
His smile was so reassuring that Serena found herself smiling back. "Thanks, Darien."   
  
The rest of the dinner progressed nicely with everyone, even Raye, jumping into the conversation. All except for one. Mina picked at her food, watching Serena converse with her parents and their guests, contemptuously. Her sister is such an attention whore, she thought, stabbing a defenseless baby carrot on her plate with her fork. Never mind that she, more than once, had tried to steer the conversation away from whatever boring topic they were on *this* time, and back to more interesting subject matter such as her performance in the sleeper hit, Bookstore Babes, as Topless Girl #2.  
  
Finally, the dishes were cleared and both families were at the door saying their goodbyes. Before she got into the SUV, however, Heather impulsively threw her arms around Serena.  
  
"Thanks for lending me this book, Serena! I promise to take real good care of it." She hugged the well-worn copy of Dickens' classic, David Copperfield, to her chest and beamed.   
  
"No problem, Heather. I hope you enjoy the book; it's one of my favorites." Serena raised a hand in a gesture of farewell to Raye, already belted into the passenger seat beside her dad. "Bye Raye. It was nice to meet you."  
  
"Bye Serena, it was nice meeting you too."  
  
Darien casually leaned out the window to wave goodbye to Ken. "I'll give you a call; we'll do lunch." Ken nodded and waved back. To Serena, who was still standing by the backseat window, chatting with Heather, he said, "I look forward to working with you, Serena." He reached out and patted her arm before backing the SUV out of the driveway.   
  
Serena stood on the same spot, watching the SUV drive down the road. Finally, it made a left turn at the intersection and was gone. Serena turned around and went back to the house, feeling strangely bereft. At the door, she smiled at Mina, who had been watching her intently, and gave her a spontaneous hug.   
  
"I think I saw some Rocky Road ice cream in the freezer; want some?" she said. She knew that her sister had felt dismissed during dinner and wanted to make her feel better.  
  
Mina smiled her first true smile that night. As annoying as her younger sister could be, there were times she could be really sweet. She threw her arm around Serena's shoulder, her previous anger gone. Besides, she thought, leading Serena to the kitchen, she needed to concentrate on her craft right now if she ever wanted to get into mainstream acting; a man would just distract her from her goal. "I'll get the bowls, you get the spoons and the ice cream."  
  
Serena grinned. If there was anything that could get Mina out of self-pity mode faster than the promise of chocolate, she wasn't aware of it. "You got it."  
  
***  
  
The ride back was silent, and that was the way Darien preferred it. No noise from the radio, no fighting between the kids, just the silent hum of the engine to keep him company. In the backseat, Heather was asleep, snoring softly against the window. Darien longed to change her position because she was going to get a stiff neck, but he couldn't stop the car in the middle of the freeway just to do that. Luckily, she shifted and moved herself into a more comfortable position. Darien sighed; Heather was already 12 years old but she was still his baby. Sometimes he couldn't believe how grown up she already was. He *must* be getting old.  
  
Beside him, Raye stared out the fogged up window, whiling away the time by picking out landmarks-hard to do since she didn't know the area, especially in the dark. She thought about the dinner at the Lombard house, and suddenly remembered something she had been meaning to talk to her father about.   
  
"Did you see how that slut kept throwing herself at you, Dad?"  
  
The SUV swerved into the other lane, the sudden intrusion of sound and the nature of the question shocking Darien out of his quiet solitude. "Raye!"  
  
"What?" she asked innocently. She turned to him. "Well, did you?"  
  
"Who are you talking about?" he asked, feigning ignorance. Raye rolled her eyes dramatically, not unlike those of her generation.  
  
"Mina," she replied, somehow making the name sound disease-infested. "She was practically sitting on your lap."  
  
Darien chuckled, sorry to admit that he agreed with his fiery-tempered daughter. "She wasn't...that bad."  
  
Raye snorted derisively. Her dad was too diplomatic for her liking. She needed someone to say what he meant, no holds barred. "Please try to give me *some* credit, dad. Mina Lombard was trying to get into your pants and you're too dense to notice!" A new thought struck her and she sobered. "What about mom?"  
  
Darien sighed, and glanced at Raye, startled at how young and vulnerable she looked every time she talked about her mom. Raye had only been six years old when Lily died; sometimes he couldn't believe his wife had been gone for eleven years, and that he had been raising his children alone. Although he had had dates since she died, he still hadn't met anyone like Lily. "What about mom, Raye?"  
  
Raye shrugged and turned to face the window, watching the landscape zoom past. The last thing she needed was to get into this touchy-feely crap her dad was so fond of. Her mother died because a drunk driver got behind the wheel and drove her off the road, and no amount of grief-counseling sessions would change that. But hey, if her dad wanted to waste his hard-earned money on shrinks, who was she to question him?   
  
They rode the rest of the way home in tense silence.  
  
When Darien finally set the parking brake in the driveway in front of their home, Raye jumped out of the vehicle and raced to the house without waiting for them to get out, slamming the door behind her. In the backseat, Heather woke up by the loud sound and blinked sleepily at her father staring fondly at her in the rearview mirror.   
  
"Are we home yet, Daddy?" Darien unbuckled his seatbelt and went around to open her door.  
  
"Time to wake up, pumpkin. It's past your bedtime." Heather blinked sleepily at him and raised her arms. Darien grinned and lifted her in his strong arms, thanking his lucky stars that Heather was small for her age, and that he worked out three times a week at the gym. "You know, you're getting a bit old for this," he said, carrying her all the way to the front door. He fumbled with the knob, and was about to set Heather down against her wishes, when the door was whisked open.  
  
"Good evening, Mr. Shields. How was your get-together?" Trista Dubois, Darien's new housekeeper, asked. She clucked her tongue and gently pried Heather out of her father's arms. "Come, cherie, it is time for you to get to bed." Her soft Creole accent lulled Heather into submission.  
  
"Thank you, Trista. And dinner went great," Darien replied. "Goodnight Heather."  
  
"Goodnight, Daddy," Heather barely managed to mumble as she climbed the stairs to her room. Trista glanced one last time at her employer before following Heather up the stairs.   
  
Heather trudged past Raye's room, from which rock music blasted through the closed door, all the way to her room where she flopped tiredly on the bed. Trista shook her head and pulled her up by the arms. "Oh no you don't, little one. You've got to brush your teeth and change into your PJs."   
  
Heather heaved a great sigh, and allowed herself to be led into her adjoining bathroom to brush her teeth. Then she went back to her room and obediently changed into her pajamas.  
  
"So," Trista said, helping Heather find the neck hole in the top, "did you enjoy your dinner?"  
  
Heather's head popped through the neck hole and nodded. "It wasn't as boring as I thought it would be. Serena was really nice; she lent me a book that I really wanted to read." Her eyes lit up as she remembered something. "Oh, and she's going to be interning at Dad's place during the school year. She's really pretty," she added, her voice tinged with admiration. "Her sister, Mina, was pretty too, but Raye said she was just trying to get into Daddy's pants."  
  
Trista raised a well-groomed eyebrow at the child. The things that came from that older girl's mouth... Then, her mind registered something else. "So, who is Serena?"  
  
Heather yawned widely and got into bed. "She's Mr. Lombard's daughter. She's really nice. I like her a lot, and I think Daddy does too, because they talked with each other all night. You'd think they were the only ones in the room," she replied before falling asleep.  
  
Trista tucked the covers around her charge more securely and turned out the light, digesting this information. She had been working as the Shields' housekeeper for the two weeks they had been living in California. Her employer, Mr. Shields, was one of the nicest people she'd ever worked for, and that was a lot of people. She knew that he was lonely, having been widowed at such a young age. She hoped that this Serena Lombard wasn't going to take advantage of that, although it sounded like she's already got her sights set on him. She shrugged, deciding that Mr. Shields was definitely smart enough not to fall into such an obvious trap like that.   
  
Although she wondered what Heather meant by that last comment.  
  
***  
  
I am having so much fun writing this story. The writing style-and the brevity-is a big departure from my norm so I hope you guys like it. Big thank you to ladysolo for getting this edit done so quickly, and for doing such a great job. Please leave a review and tell me what you think! 


	3. Chapter Two

Six Degrees

Chapter two

By: Crystal Rose

Edited by: ladysolo

Suspense/Drama

R

Author's note: A big thank-you lick for my editor/finger-puppet, ladysolo, for telling me that the original version was too bland for her taste.  That bit of criticism resulted in an extra two and a half pages for all.  LS will accept personal cheques, but only if they're made out to me.  Otherwise, you can show her your love by reading her new chapter of Merletto II: The Vendetta (which I am, in turn, editing) and leaving glowing reviews at the door.

Also, thanks to the readers for the lovely reviews (keep them coming!), especially to those who took the time to personally write me a longish note to give me some advice on how to proceed.  You know who you guys are.  

Some of you will be glad to know that the chapters won't be anywhere near as long as Wounded Souls' was—but there will be many.  I've got to warn you now that this in story, while Serena-Darien centred, will not always have chapters devoted to them, so be patient.  ^^;;;  

Standard disclaimers apply.

            ***

Candles burned low in their holders, casting a flickering glow on the walls; an empty bottle of wine and two equally empty glasses sat on top of the dresser; scattered clothing created a path from the door to the bed.  And in the midst of this organized chaos were a man and a woman, naked, basking in the afterglow of making love, their tired, sweaty bodies boneless and tangled up in the satin sheets.

            Lita Noble stared at the ceiling fan, a lazy smile on her face.  She reached over and gave her bed companion a congratulatory pat on the abdomen.  "That was good, Nate.  No, check that.  It was great."

            Nathan Cutter chuckled, the muscles of his abdomen rippling which, in Lita's opinion, was almost as hypnotizing as the whirring ceiling fan blades overhead.  "Some of my best work, eh?"

            Lita poked a finger in his side and swung a leg over his.  "Now don't get cocky," she warned playfully.  She raised her eyebrow when she felt a stirring against her leg.  "You know that's not what I meant."

            Nathan pulled her closer and planted a kiss on her forehead.  "Talk about a Freudian slip," he said, caressing her breast and making Lita shiver.

            "Again?  Oh honey, I'd love to but we don't have time," Lita said regretfully.  She cuddled into his side.  "I have to get back to the restaurant soon."   

            They lay together in silence, wanting to forget about their real lives and just cocoon themselves away in the cozy bedroom.  At length, Lita sighed happily and buried her face into the crook of his neck.  "I love this.  No work, no responsibilities, just us.  I want it to stay like this forever."

            Nathan said nothing, preferring to agree with touch rather than words.  They had been meeting like this in his apartment, in his bed, for almost one year.  Pockets of pleasure-filled time were all they could afford with their separate lives and hectic schedules but they were thankful for every minute.  He glanced at the digital clock and sighed; their time was almost running out.

            Lita heard him and followed his gaze to the clock, then mimicked his sigh.  Sometimes ending their time together was harder than spending time apart.  Not wanting to put off the inevitable, she reluctantly slipped out of bed and began to gather her clothing.  Nathan stayed in bed, watching her naked form bending over to pick up a lacy panty peeking out from behind the armchair, an appreciative smile on his face as he watched her struggling to reach the wayward garment.  Lita had one fine ass.  Must be all that Tae-Bo she did.

Finally, he too got up and stretched before putting on his boxer briefs.  He helped Lita find a missing sock, which she found inconveniently located in the trashcan.  She plucked it out gingerly and dusted it off.  "Hey, what's this?" she asked, pointing at an official-looking letter she found lying on top of the garbage.  

Nathan looked over her shoulder and rolled his eyes dismissively.  "Her lawyer says she wants the condo."

Lita turned outraged eyes toward him.  "The hell she does.  Hasn't she taken enough from you and Sammy?"

The mention of his young son had Nathan's forehead creasing.  They had failed him so much already, yet here they were bickering over something so petty as a beachfront condo.  If his pride hadn't taken such a blow thanks to that bitch, he would've willingly kicked out the renters** and signed over the deed to the condo to her, but pride ran strong in his veins.  Lita _was_ right; she had taken too much already and he was damned if he was going to give her any more.  **

Lita finished putting on her clothes and quickly wrapped her arms around her lover.  "Oh baby, I'm sorry we didn't meet each other first," she said softly, kissing him on the lips.  Finally, she broke away and glanced at the bureau where two shiny bands of gold lay.  She sighed and reached out for them, each cold ring feeling like a dead weight on her finger as she slipped them on.  The diamond solitaire, although as lovely as it was expensive, and her plain wedding band just reminded Lita of handcuffs.  

"I hate seeing you with those," Nathan said behind her, already dressed to go back to work, clenching his jaw.  Lita's cheeks burned and she hung her head.

"I know you do, but you know I can't leave him yet.  I can't afford to," she replied almost apologetically.  She took his hand and held it to her heart.  "I don't love him, Nate."

"Then why don't you leave him?  Be with me—with us," he said, not knowing whether it was a plea or a demand.  He knew he sounded pathetic but he didn't care.  Lita looked at him sadly and shook her head.

"You know why.  It's not the right time."  She gripped his hand harder when he gazed at the heavens as if asking for divine guidance.  As if God would side with adulterers.  "Please Nathan, I have to get back to work.  He's probably wondering where I am already."

Nathan would like to tell her husband—his _rival_—just where she had been for the past hour.  But one look at Lita's pleading face mollified him…for now.  "I could never resist you when you give me that face," he said ruefully, making every effort to smile.  She visibly relaxed.

He kissed her brow and patted her on the rump playfully, the previous tension gone for the time being.  It was always like this, him making her feel bad for not being able to walk away from her marriage, and him easing her guilt—and perhaps, also his own—by doing something to make her laugh.  "It's time to go," he said regretfully.  

Lita nodded, her stomach clenching the way it did every time she left this apartment, their love nest, and her haven.  She watched as Nathan cautiously opened the front door, surreptitiously glancing both ways before giving her the all clear.  She hurriedly gave him a kiss goodbye.  "Next Thursday?  He'll be out of town the whole day."  

He nodded, making a mental note of it.  "Next Thursday," he confirmed.  One last kiss, and she was gone.  

Alone in his apartment, Nathan leaned against the door and sighed.  Her smell was everywhere in the tiny two-bedroom apartment, the light blend of fruit and floral that drove him crazy with lust every time it wafted in his general direction.  

He knew he was crazy, sleeping with a married woman like this, especially since his own marriage had failed due to adultery—his ex's, not his.  He was taking some mighty big chances—especially with his son.  It wasn't easy having an adulterous relationship and be the single father of a six-year old at the same time.  Sammy liked Lita, but he didn't know what the nature of their relationship was—and Nathan preferred to keep it that way, at least for now.  Sammy had been struggling to come to grips with his mother's abandonment, he didn't need his father's complicated love life to make things worse in his six-year old world.  

Sometimes, late at night, Nathan would wonder if this affair was worth all the lies, guilt, and inconvenience.  

And what kind of message was he sending to his son?  That it was okay for him to sleep with a married woman just as long as he was single?  That having an affair was okay if you didn't love your spouse anymore? 

He absently picked up the pillow that Lita had been using and took a whiff.  Instantly, his senses were awakened by that mysterious scent of citrus and roses and he was reminded of all the times they had in and out of the bedroom.  And came to a conclusion.

Hell yeah, it was worth it.  

***

Amy felt self-conscious, sitting all by herself in the crowded lunchroom with nothing but a file folder to keep her company.  The file on MediaWorks' newest client lay open beside her homemade sandwich—two slices of bologna between two slices of white bread with a light slathering of mayo—neither of which had been touched since she sat down ten minutes ago.

This was the same lunchtime routine she went through everyday since she started working at MediaWorks two years ago as a secretary.  Before that, it had been at the bank down the street where she had been a teller, an unlikely job for her given her reclusive nature.  Apparently, the bank managers also thought the same thing since they let her go after the 90-day trial period.  Amy shrugged; it was their loss.  She couldn't help it if she found her own company far more enjoyable than that of others. 

_That's not true_, her inner bitch said.  _How many times have you wished you were at the popular girls' table in the school cafeteria instead of eating lunch by your locker_?

Well, Amy had to give Inner Bitch that.  She remembered staring at the other girls in her class, draped all over their boyfriends, wishing that she was somehow one of them instead of watching them from afar, her nose buried in a book.

But such was Amy Miller's lot in life.  How could she help being a bookworm when her own mother was too busy operating on people and her father was too busy painting mountains to notice that their daughter had no children her own age to talk to?  Their marriage was a match made in divorce court from the start.  

It was a wonder that they were able to stand each other's company long enough to conceive their only child.  It was as if her house had a revolving door: one parent was leaving just as the other was arriving.  To say that she hated her childhood and resented her parents was an understatement.  Amy smiled bitterly into her cup and took a sip of her lukewarm coffee.  It had taken her five years of expensive therapy to finally admit that out loud.

_The good thing about having a shitty childhood is having two guilty parents willing enough to foot the hefty therapist's bills_, Inner Bitch said flippantly.  With her long, sexy tousled blonde hair, perky breasts, and devil-may-care attitude, Inner Bitch was the woman Amy had always wanted to be.  Alas, Amy had been born with wiry blue-black hair that had a mind of its own, underdeveloped breasts, and a head-in-the-sand complex.  Hardly Inner Bitch-type attributes.

_Your problem is you're such a stick in the mud_, Inner Bitch said, studying her blood-red talon-like nails.  _You just need to get out more.  Go out, get drunk, have crazy, anonymous sex with a guy you just met.  Dress like a slut and act like one.  Let me out, goddammit! _ 

Amy rolled her eyes at herself.  It was a damn good thing she didn't mention her "conversations" with Inner Bitch at her weekly therapy sessions; her doctor would surely think she had a multiple personality disorder.  How could she explain that Inner Bitch wasn't another personality, but her _repressed_ _true self_ without sounding like a basket case?  Even to her it sounded crazy.  

A chorus of laughter from across the room had Amy looking over her shoulder.  The secretaries' usual table.  She should have known.  The secretaries usually gathered at that table everyday, a throwback to the popular girls' table in the high school cafeteria.  Now, like then, Amy was an observant, and a highly jealous one at that.

She had been invited to sit at that table by the queen bee herself when she first started working at MediaWorks.  Molly's booming New York accent and infectious smile made it hard for Amy to politely refuse.  She ate lunch with them for a few days, her quiet nature keeping her out of the loop of the latest office gossip.  Despite the frivolous conversations, Amy found that gradually, she was beginning to come out of her shell and enjoy just listening to their chatter.  Even Inner Bitch seemed to have a good time.

Inner Bitch snorted in denial.  _With that group of soccer moms and Martha Stewart wannabes?  As if_.

One day, she was late getting down to the cafeteria.  Her boss had asked her to take a letter down for her, and she had had no choice but to delay her own lunch hour to comply with her order.  Who knew that the woman had a tendency to be so long-winded?  By the time she got down to the cafeteria, the others had decided to treat themselves to some sushi at a nearby Japanese restaurant for lunch, and left.

A burst of loud female laughter had Amy's head snapping up from the file she was pretending to read.  Of course, that obnoxious laughter could only be from that red-haired twit Molly.  Amy narrowed her eyes, trying to hear their conversation, a feat that would require superhuman hearing ability since they were halfway across the noisy room.

Inner Bitch set down her nail file and watched the group with unabashed curiosity.  _They're talking about you, you know_.  Amy tried to deny it to Inner Bitch, partly because she didn't want it to be true, and partly because she didn't want Inner Bitch of all "people" see her private humiliation.  Some things were best kept to one's self.  _I AM your self, dumb-ass_.  _Don't you know that you can't hide anything from me_?

Amy watched Molly's lips, this time trying to decipher what she was saying.  She scowled.  That bitch was talking about her, she just knew it!  Another course of laughter, and Amy knew she had her proof.  Well, if they thought she was just going to sit there, watching them make fun of her, they obviously underestimated her.

Inner Bitch reappeared with boxing gloves and a small towel draped around her neck.  _Knock that motherfucker to the ground!_  Amy could swear she could hear the sound of cheering in the background.  _Amy!  Amy!  Amy!_  For once, Inner Bitch was going to be proud of her.

She packed up her things with as much dignity as she could muster and took the long way to get to the exit.  Amy Miller was nobody's fool.  She was going to spend the rest of her lunch hour at the park across the street.  That would show them.  She didn't have to take their crap.  Bitches.

Inner Bitch groaned, dropping the boxing gloves and towel on the floor in disbelief.  _You're hopeless, you know that?  I don't even know why I bother with you…_

Across the room, a pair of large green eyes watched Amy skitter around the room, only to end up leaving it.  She just couldn't understand why Amy didn't eat lunch with them, especially after all the trouble she went through trying to be nice to her.  Ah well, if Amy wanted to be a loner, who was she to judge? Molly mentally shrugged her shoulders and turned her attention back to the conversation.  She laughed at a comment her fellow secretary made.

"You're right, that _was_ the funniest scene in the whole movie," she agreed, putting Amy out of her mind once and for all.

***

Mina had always loved acting.  The idea of immortalizing yourself on the screen for the entire world to see had always appealed to her, even as a child.  Back then, she would dress up in her mother's old clothes and reenact the stories from her favorite storybooks: Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Snow White.  She would even charge the neighborhood kids a nickel each for every matinee performance.

She had always gotten the lead in the school play, only once losing the part since her singing voice wasn't nearly up to par with Alicia Smith's.  Oh well, it's not as if she wanted to play Fraulein Maria anyway.  Especially since Bobby was playing Captain Von Trapp.  Mina repressed a shudder.  Seven years out of high school and she still couldn't stomach the thought of having to kiss Bobby, or Bucky, as he was called because of his bucked teeth.  She gladly gave the part up to Alicia, who ended up marrying the loser three years ago.  

Anyway, her short-lived college career had taught Mina only two things: she wasn't cut out for college, and she sure as hell wasn't cut out to be a bio-chemist, no matter that she had a respectable 3.89 GPA.  Science was just too _boring_; Mina needed action.

And when Mina Lombard wanted something, she usually got it.  

She spent the next few months doing shit jobs while she tried to figure out what to do with her life.  Actually, she had to take that back.  The nude modeling wasn't _so_ bad.  She knew her body was every guy's wet dream when she was clothed, but _nude_?  They didn't stand a chance.  She could just imagine all the jacking off in the guys' washroom once class was over.  

Ironically enough, it was while she was posing with her head thrown back, the tip of her tongue touching her upper lip, her nipples pointing proudly at the ceiling, and two fingers a hair's breadth away from her nether region, did she get inspired to become an actress.  She became so excited at the idea that her cheeks flushed and she let out a lusty moan—to the fascination of her audience.  

She chuckled, remembering all the (male) artists squirming in their seats, beads of sweat dotting their brows as they struggled to concentrate.  Those horny bastards, she thought fondly.  Too bad that was the last sitting she ever did.  As soon as the class was over, Mina marched herself to the art director—Mina rolled her eyes.  Art director, indeed—and quit right then and there.  She hadn't looked back ever since.  

Now, Mina got up, brushing the hair out of her eyes.  She struggled to keep an eager expression on her face, and looked at the man sitting placidly on the couch.

"How'd I do, sir?"  She yearned to wipe the dribble away from the corner of her mouth, but she forced herself to remain still as she awaited his verdict.

The man inwardly sneered.  He could see through her act of bravado right down to the vulnerable little girl she still was.  Knowing that she wanted to dash off to the bathroom and wash out her mouth, he deliberately made a show of stuffing his now limp and very satisfied dick back into his pants, and doing up the zipper.  She sure gave one hell of a blowjob.  

"Well," he said, very much enjoying leering at her, "you gave a fine audition, Mina, but I'm afraid the decision isn't up to me alone."

Mina grit her teeth but said nothing.  She knew what was coming; she had been expecting it the minute she walked into the door and saw him alone in the room.  She squared her shoulders and nodded for him to continue.  He smiled pompously.

"You'll have to come back later on this evening to audition again, this time on camera, and for me and my co-producer."

Mina nodded and gathered her things.  She just wanted to get the hell out of there; she didn't want him to see her cry.

She pretended not to let it bother her, but her father's obvious disdain for her life choices bothered her tremendously.  She had always been a 'daddy's little girl' even after Serena came along, but as soon as she dropped out of college, her father had turned cool towards her.  She missed the lunches she would share with her father every week during one of her breaks from class; the spontaneous emails she received from him detailing his day, even though she lived only 30-minutes away; the stupid jokes they shared that only they got; the ball games they would catch during the season in the nosebleed section because they were too cheap to buy better tickets.  Most of all, she missed her father.  But she'd be damned if she ever told him that.

She swallowed.  She was a big girl; she didn't need him anymore.  Who cares if Serena was the one he lavished his attention on?  She sure as hell didn't.  Serena, the golden child.  The one who never made any trouble for her parents, the one who did everything right.  What did it matter that not only had _she_ always been her mother's favourite, but now it seemed as though she were her father's?  Classic youngest child syndrome.  In Mina's opinion, _she_ was the lucky one, not her sister.  Now that she had forged her own way, and had reclaimed her life from her parents' standards, she was _much_ happier.  Serena was too chicken-shit to get out from under their parents' thumbs, to become independent, and now she had to suffer from their constant meddling.  Poor kid.  No matter how much she resented Serena's new favourite kid status, she didn't deserve to have her life controlled by their parents—they were just pretending to be concerned anyway. ****

She tried to button up her shirt, but found that her shaking hands couldn't manage the third one.  To her utter dismay, tears welled up in her eyes and her lower lip started to tremble.  Goddamn button.  Why couldn't this piece of shit just cooperate with her for once?  What the hell did she ever do to deserve such a shoddily constructed shirt that the fucking buttons didn't even work?  She was a good person: she believed in God, and walked on the right side of the law in the things that mattered.  Why couldn't she just get a break?  

She just wanted to make a few movies, for God's sake!  What was so wrong with that?

She dashed the back of her hand across her eyes and stumbled out of the room.  Outside, the sun was shining, the breeze carried with it that distinct ocean scent she loved, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  Mina blinked, trying to get used to the light again after "auditioning" in the dark studio for the better part of an hour and a half.  

What did her blowjob skills have to do with a romantic comedy anyway, she thought.  She should have just gone into the porn industry—at least she'd get paid well for all the sexual favours she performed.  

She shook her head; she wanted to be known for her acting skills _on_ camera instead of off.  If she wanted to break into the big-time—the mainstream movies—she would have to start choosing her roles more carefully.  Unfortunately, being new to the acting game, she basically had to whore herself to even get her foot in the door for an audition.  Life sucked. ****

A young woman passed by holding the hand of a toddler she guessed was her daughter.  Mina took an abrupt step back, not wanting to taint the child with the residual filth that came as a result of her activities in the producer's office.    

If acting was her dream, how come pursuing it was turning out to be such a nightmare?

***

Irene was bored.  The house was clean, the laundry already folded, the grocery list made out, and it wasn't even noon yet.  She flipped through the newspaper, raising her eyebrow at some of the headlines she read.  Huh, she thought, another sex scandal in the White House again.  Well, at least the intern _this_ time had better fashion sense.  And, unlike the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal, no cigars were hurt or** maimed in the "alleged" kinky activities in the Oval Office…this time around.  **

Silence.  The house was filled with it and it was suffocating.  Was it possible to drown in silence?  Irene didn't want to find out and started to rustle the paper as much as possible.  The refrigerator began to hum behind her and, while it was a welcome intrusion, but it was still too quiet for Irene.  

She glanced at the phone on the counter.  She narrowed her eyes and tried to tap into her inner goddess powers to make it ring.  Thirty seconds passed and nothing happened.  She was going to have to throw that self-help book away and write an outraged letter to the author demanding her money back.  Inner goddess powers, indeed.  

She supposed she could ring up one of her friends and make plans for lunch.  She ran through her mental address book and came up empty.  Patricia was busy at school, teaching a class of middle-school students Algebra.  Anne was at the arboretum, tending to her trees and giving tours to garden enthusiasts throughout the day.  The only other person who, like herself, had no job to keep her occupied was Beryl, who made a living as a society wife, but she couldn't stand the woman's gossipy ways.  No, it seemed that Irene was doomed to spend the entire day by herself, cooped up in her house.

But then again, what else was new?

She tapped her fingernails restlessly on the countertop.  She needed to get out of the house, but where would she go?  She reached the last page of the paper.  Nothing but advertisements.  As much as she appreciated the 10% off coupon for adult diapers, she was confident that she still had adequate bowel and bladder control.  

Irene was about to sweep the whole mess into the open trashcan when another advertisement caught her eye.  It was just a tiny ad stuck in the bottom corner of the page, no fancy graphics or colors, yet Irene couldn't figure out what attracted her to it.  

"Last chance to register for night courses for the fall semester!"  

The words just jumped out at her, stirring a lost youth and abandoned dreams from deep within.  Could she really do it, go back to school at her age?  She couldn't possibly…could she?  Nah.  She'd be too embarrassed, sitting there in a lecture hall, in the midst of all those 20-somethings.  She'd stick out like a sore thumb.  An _old_ sore thumb.  Still…it couldn't hurt to read the ad one more time, could it?  

She scanned the list.  Accounting, Anthropology… Introduction to Religion, History of Modern Day Literature… East Asia in the early 19th Century…  Writer's Workshop, Zoology—wait, Writer's Workshop?  Irene grabbed the blue-ink pen beside the phone and circled it twice.  In bold letters, she wrote, 'CALL FOR INFO' beside the telephone number.  Then, she carefully tore out the ad and threw the rest away.  

Irene took a deep, calming breath.  By this time next month, she could be sitting in a lecture hall with hundreds of kids she didn't know.  And what would her own kids and husband say about this?  Mina probably wouldn't understand why she'd want to go back to school when she was already out, but maybe Serena, given her love of learning, would understand her reasons.  That left Ken.  

Her stomach churned just thinking about Ken's reaction to her wanting to go back to school.  During the first year of their marriage, when Mina had grown enough to be left at her mother's house during the day, she had broached the topic of going back to school to finish her degree, but Ken had put an adamant foot down.  He didn't want his daughter to be raised by anyone other than her parents, and since he was busy trying to earn his own degree, Irene was the one left with the task of taking care of the baby by herself.  

Over the years, she had thought about going back to school, but then Serena was born and she was once again called upon to raise a baby _on top of_ an active toddler.  School eventually got pushed down her priority list until she had forgotten about it altogether.  But this time, the girls were grown up and had moved out of the house.  Surely Ken would have no objections to her going back to school, right?  

Irene resolved to bring up the subject that night during dinner, and this time, she was not taking no for an answer.  

***

Told you there would be some chapters without Serena and Darien in them.  Don't worry—all will be explained soon.  Well, maybe not so soon.  Gotta keep up the suspense just a bit longer.  Feedback in the form of reviews, emails, or PMs would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks for reading and I hoped you enjoyed it.  ;)


	4. Chapter Three

Six Degrees

Chapter Three

By: Crystal Rose

Edited by: ladysolo

* * *

The air conditioner hummed quietly in the window, sending a stream of lukewarm air into the muggy room. Amara Jones was _not_ amused. Her shirt was sticking to her back, her bare legs to the vinyl seat cover, her hair to her head. She looked longingly out the window where the cool breeze was rustling the leaves on the nearby tree. Why must the school administration insist on closing all doors and windows when the A/C was on, even if it did a piss-poor job of cooling an office the size of a broom closet?

Stupid rules. If there was anything Amara hated more than control-top pantyhose, over-groomed miniature toy poodles, ugly babies, and public restrooms, it was rules. Hell, if it weren't for the strict rules of her university, she'd still be in the garage working on her motorcycle instead of sitting in her internship advisor's cramped office. At least the company wasn't so bad.

"I can't believe summer's over," Amara whined for the sixth time since they got there ten minutes ago.

Serena patted her hand absently, tired of repeating herself to her stubborn friend. "We've been out of school since April—that's _four_ months out of school. Aren't you sick of it yet?"

Amara pouted. Serena was giving her that disapproving teacher look again, and Amara was beginning to feel like a juvenile delinquent. "Yes," she replied petulantly, crossing her fingers behind her. What Serena didn't know wouldn't hurt her…and there were many things about Amara that she didn't know. Again, she had the stupid rules to blame.

"Ah, punctual as usual," said a familiar voice that had both girls turning towards the door. Dr. Michelle Waterstaff had walked through the door looking refreshingly cool, despite the malfunctioning air-conditioner, and closed the door, sealing the room off like a tomb. Amara would've whimpered a protest had Serena not kicked her foot lightly. The girl knew her too well.

"So, girls," Michelle said, gracefully sliding into her chair and tying her thick chestnut brown hair into a messy ponytail. "Are you ready for your first day at MediaWorks?"

Serena nodded enthusiastically. "I can't wait to get started."

Michelle nodded; Serena's enthusiasm in her work was refreshing to see; she wondered how long the novelty of her internship would last before she'd get as cynical as the paper-pusher in the cubicle next to her. "That's good, because as soon as you two leave here, you have to jet it over to MediaWorks for your orientation.

"As you both know," Michelle continued, "every Monday, you have to report here at 8 AM to give me a weekly status report on your progress at MediaWorks. What you're learning, what you contributed to the company, how you're getting along with your coworkers, etc. Now, if you could just sign these contracts assuring MediaWorks and the university that you won't seek outside employment as long as you're enrolled in the program...." She handed each a contract and a pen and waited until they signed on the dotted lines.

"Great, you're all set to go." Michelle stood up and extended her hand to Amara. "Cheer up, Amara. It's just your first day."

Amara mumbled something and shook Michelle's hand grudgingly, almost crushing the woman's delicate hand in her iron grip. "I'll be in the car, Serena," she said over her shoulder, and almost had a mini-orgasm when she felt the rush of cool air on her face when she left the office. What the university officials were doing with the hefty tuition she paid each year, resulting in her being almost neck-deep in debt with the evil financial aid people, she'll never know. Amara fished the car keys out of her pocket, unlocked the doors from twenty feet away—thank _God_ for keyless remote entry—and cranked up the A/C as soon as her butt cheeks touched the upholstery.

Meanwhile, Serena was inside Michelle's office, making apologies for her friend. "She's just feeling grumpy that summer's over," she explained feebly. She was going to _kick_ Amara's _ass_ for embarrassing her in front of their professor like that.

Michelle smiled understandingly. "Don't worry about it, Serena. Amara's wasn't the only surly face I've seen today." But hers _was_ the only one that was almost endearingly cute. She didn't think Amara would appreciate that particular observation any more than she appreciated the oppressing heat in her office.

She smiled reassuringly at Serena and handed her a dossier. "When you get to MediaWorks, you and Amara have to check in with reception. From there, you and your fellow interns will be given a briefing by one of your superiors, and you will be placed in a department. I know you wanted to be in the creative department, but because of the recent takeover of Global Advertising, you might not be placed there."

Serena was disappointed, but tried not to let it show. "It's okay, Michelle. I just want to work there and get the experience." She thanked Michelle and said goodbye. "We'll see you next Monday—and hopefully, Amara will be in a better mood."

"Amara? In a good mood? When pigs fly," Michelle joked and laughed with Serena. She waited a few moments after Serena had closed the door, tapping her chin thoughtfully with her finger. When she was sure Serena was gone, she picked up her phone and dialed a now familiar number.

"She's on her way," she said into the phone. "You owe me…again."

The man on the other end chuckled, the sound somewhere between amusement and cold bitterness. "Don't worry, Michelle; I've got good credit."

Michelle smiled, thinking of the Mediterranean cruise tickets that had been courieredto her door 17 years ago in return for a favour she had done, albeit unknowingly, out of the goodness of her heart. Now in her early 40s—a fact she still couldn't believe—and appropriately jaded from all of life's pitfalls, capitalism had replaced her youthful idealism. In other words, she wasn't stupid enough to do a favour of this magnitude for nothing. She wondered what little goody will be appearing on her doorstep this time. She _had_ been eyeing that cute little red convertible just the other day.…

"Oh I know you do," she replied sweetly. "Have you figured out what you're going to do yet?"

"Just let me worry about that, Michelle," the man snapped peevishly. "Don't you have a co-ed to chase?"

Michelle laughed. Despite their relationship now, they used to be friends way back when. Hell, they had even dated a few times in college—until he saw her roommate and fell head-over-heels in love with her. Ah well. C'est la vie. "You haven't changed a bit, you know that? Well, it's been fun reliving our past, but I'm afraid I've got a faculty meeting to get to in fifteen minutes."

"Before you go, wouldn't you like to tell me what you want in return?"

Michelle grinned. "Surprise me."

"I can't believe you were so rude to Michelle, Amara," Serena said reproachfully.

"Buckle your seatbelt." Amara gunned the engine, threw the car into reverse and backed expertly out of her parking space. She zipped through the tree-lined campus and was soon out on the freeway.

"You know, you should be extremely grateful to Michelle for giving us these jobs," Serena began, not quite willing to drop the subject just yet. "She knows a lot of people in this industry. You never know when you'll need a contact—"

"Stop right there, Serena." Amara switched lanes to overtake a slow-moving minivan with Texas plates before continuing. "I don't owe Michelle anything. It seems to me that _I_ was the one pulling all-nighters, studying for an exam or finishing a paper, not Michelle. While I was struggling to stay awake during all my classes after pulling said all-nighters, she was probably in that oven of an office, fucking yet another unsuspecting but extremely grateful fraternity boy. I'm thankful for the position I landed through Michelle, but I _earned_ it, and I most certainly will not kiss her ass to show my appreciation."

Serena blew out a frustrated breath and stared out the window. "Yeah, you're right," she said after a minute of silence. "It's just that with graduation just around the corner, we can't afford to mess these internships up. Our careers depend on how we do on these internships; if we get good end-of-the-year reviews from our bosses, they might ask us to work for them again when we graduate!"

Amara came to a rolling stop, barely missing the hip of an elderly pedestrian before she raced through the intersection. Serena exhaled loudly and gripped her armrest tighter. "You know I hate it when you do that."

"Yeah…" Amara replied fondly. "Aw, relax. I'll behave while we're on the clock." She laughed at Serena's skeptical look and said, "I promise."

Serena made a pithy comment about Amara's driving and her promises, and went back to ruminating about the course their lives were taking. "Do you realize that we're on the cusp of adulthood, Amara?"

Oh boy, Amara thought. When Serena got like this, she tended to rewrite Zen philosophies with the skill of the Wachowski brothers of _The Matrix, Matrix: Reloaded_, and _Matrix: Revolutions_ fame. Those movies were stupid and a waste of money. And the lead actor had the acting ability of a plank of wood. But only Amara was smart enough to see that. ****

Thankfully, they had reached the parking lot. Serena stopped her philosophizing long enough to hand Amara the parking pass they were provided by MediaWorks when they were awarded their internships. Which, Amara thought, was a fair trade. They'd be working for free for a whole year, so they should be able to park for free as well. After all, technically they weren't real "employees". They were college students doing all the shit work that the paid employees didn't want to get stuck doing.

"Ooh, here we go," Serena breathed as Amara inched the car past the barriers and into the dimly lit ground floor level of the parking garage. "I'm getting nervous."

"A little too late for the butterflies, Serena," Amara muttered. She didn't want to admit it, certainly not to Serena, but she too felt butterflies in her stomach. Amara scanned the rows of parking space in front of her. Not one available. "This is what we get for coming in late."

"Not something that we could help," Serena reminded her, glancing at the dashboard clock. "We'd better hurry or we're going to be late."

"Tell them that," Amara replied, gesturing to the parked cars they drove by. They wove their way through all the rows of cars, all foreign and all luxury models. And still they found nothing.

Almost a half-hour and three underground levels later, Serena and Amara finally pulled into a cramped space between a delivery van and a late-model station wagon and locked their doors.

"It's a good thing we don't have to pay for our parking pass," Amara commented on their way to the elevator on the other side of the football field-sized garage. "I'm not going to pay an arm and a leg to park in the third circle of hell."

"These shoes hurt," Serena complained, struggling to keep up with Amara's brisk pace. "You could at least slow down."

"You were the one worrying about being late," Amara reminded her, slowing her pace down just a tad. Serena scampered after her, limping in her new 2 ½-inch heels. "Why'd you have to wear those, anyway?"

"They were pretty," Serena replied, wincing as her baby toes threatened to poke through the pointed front of her shoes. "They _are_ pretty."

"Pretty big pain in the ass, I bet," Amara chirped, glad she decided to wear her sensible flats to work this morning, even though Serena had declared that they were "just a hair above orthopedic shoes."

"Look who's laughing now," she said as she pressed the button for the elevator. Serena limped in after her, yipping when the door almost closed on her heel.

The subterranean elevator only took them as far as the ground level of the building; from there, they switched to an express elevator that would take them straight to the MediaWorks lobby. The elevators rose through the floors at heart-stopping speed, and before they knew it, the doors opened to a luxurious reception area manned by a capable-looking woman in her early thirties, her headset lost amid her voluminous brown curls.

"MediaWorks, please hold," she said. She pushed another button. "Thank you for holding. I'm sorry; Mr. Goldberg is in a meeting from now until 2:30. Would you like me to transfer you to his voicemail? One moment, please."

Amara and Serena exchanged glances and shrugged. All the lights on the switchboard were blinking, and the woman didn't seem to notice them as she went from one line to another, tending to everyone's needs one light at a time. Just as Amara was about to clear her throat to catch the woman's attention, she turned her head and smiled at them.

"Hi, how may I help you?" Serena blinked, caught off-guard at the woman's sudden perkiness. Amara nudged her back, and stepped backward, leaving her to talk to the woman alone.

"Er, yes. Hi. I'm Serena Lombard and this is Amara Jones. We're the new interns—"

"Oh, yes," the woman interrupted. "Welcome to MediaWorks. All the other interns are assembled in the boardroom, and Mr. Shields is just waiting for your arrival before he begins the meeting." Her voice, as well as her expression, oozed disapproval.

Serena swallowed nervously. "We had parking trouble," she explained weakly.

The woman removed her headset, and rose from her seat. Serena and Amara stepped back, away from the statuesque woman that emerged from behind the desk. She pointed to the escalators behind her. "You'll want to take those to the upper level, then follow the left corridor to the boardroom."

"Thanks," Serena said, but she was already seated, headset back in place. Together, she and Amara hurriedly made their way to the escalator, aware that they were already 15 minutes late for the orientation.

They raced up the escalator, and ran down the hallway, almost colliding with a mousy-looking girl carrying an armload of files.

"Hey!" The girl teetered, then found her balance against the wall.

"Sorry!" Serena called, not bothering to look back. She'll just look that girl up _after_ the meeting to apologize.

Two heavy wooden doors loomed ahead of them at the end of the hallway—no doubt the doors leading to the boardroom. Serena and Amara took a few quick seconds to compose themselves before entering the boardroom.

Amara's hand was inches away from the doorknob when the door swung open from the inside, and they came face to face with a none-too-pleased Darien Shields. Amara stepped back, bumping into Serena who let out a surprised yelp, and bit her lip.

"You're late," Darien said sternly, holding the door open for them. "Sit."

Aware that they were being scrutinized by the other interns, Amara and Serena scurried to the only remaining seats in the room, which happened to be on either side of Darien's at the head of the table. Amara widened her eyes at Serena, who pretended not to see. She didn't need to get into more trouble with the new boss, even if he happened to be her father's best friend.

Darien waited until the two were settled in their seats before pushing the door closed, and walked in great, purposeful strides to the front of the room. He knew he had the attention of the interns; hell, his very expression _commanded_ it. He stood with his arms crossed, and stared the nervous interns down.

He could practically see their little hearts pounding in their throats. Moments like these made him stop and think about how much he loved his job.

He crossed his arms and cleared his throat. "Now that everyone's here," he began, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Serena and Amara exchange wary glances. Better they learn from their mistakes early on in the game, he decided, rather than later when the fallout could be much worse.

"First of all, I offer my congratulations to all of you. The internships the five of you are filling are some of the most sought-out internships _in the country_,so you should all be very proud of yourselves. ****

"Don't fool yourselves into thinking that the hard part's over because it's just beginning. You will be judged on not just your performance, but also your ability to offer fresh, new ideas to the team. I am aware that some of you have applied for specific departments, so we'll do everything we can to grant them."

Darien paused, letting the information sink in. He grinned slyly at the interns. "And you'll be getting paid from now until your contracts expire in June."

It was amusing to watch their eyes go from rapt attention, to blank confusion, then to startled awe. He could tell that they all wanted discuss their sudden windfall amongst themselves, but he had other business to get to.

"You'll be paid the starting salary, plus 8% in lieu of benefits. If, at the end of the year, we decide to keep you on as full-time employees, you will be given full benefits, including paid vacation leave, and medical and dental." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Serena trying to hide the wide grin that was threatening to split her face.

"And," he continued dramatically, "If we decide to keep you on, we'll give you a $5000 signing bonus."

The stifled gasp he knew was from Serena, but the "Yes!" came from a cocky-looking guy with sun-streaked, shoulder length blond hair at the end of the table. Zachary Stone, he believed his name was. He didn't know why, but Darien's hackles rose the second Zachary entered the room. He would have to keep a close eye on him, he thought.

Beside him, Serena was blushing from her near-outburst. Why couldn't she just keep her feelings to herself, instead of being such an open book? She scowled at Amara who was smirking at her. She waited until Darien turned away before sticking out her tongue.

Amara rolled her eyes and discretely flipped her the finger. Serena almost snorted, but managed to hold it back when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, the surfer-boy at the end of the table staring at her, his green eyes calculating.

This wasn't the first time during the meeting she saw him staring at her, and frankly, she was starting to get annoyed. What was his problem? She could understand the initial stare when she and Amara had arrived late and breathless, but they had been in the boardroom for almost fifteen minutes now. He was beginning to unnerve her, and more, he was beginning to piss her off.

She sent him an annoyed glance. He grinned rakishly, which turned into a frightened smile when Amara glowered, and shook a fist at him. Amara winked at Serena; she had such a talent for scaring off Serena's unwanted admirers. In fact, Amara had always been doing that ever since she knew her. Almost as if—

"Ms. Lombard, am I boring you?" Darien's wry voice cut through her thoughts, and made her heart beat faster. "Because if I am, you're welcome to leave the room."

Humiliation burned in her cheeks, and chagrin was etched on her features. Wordlessly—for there _were_ no words to say to get herself out of this embarrassing situation—she shook her head, and kept it down for the rest of the meeting.

"Good," Darien replied tersely. "As I was saying, I'm going to take you all on a tour of the place, and give you your placements. If you'll just wait for me outside, we can begin."

Everyone rose from their seats and shuffled to the door. Amara sent Serena glance that spoke of the guilt and pity she felt for her friend; it was _her_ fault that Serena had gotten distracted during the meeting, and her fault that she was caught. Serena nodded; she wasn't blaming her, and for that, Amara felt even guiltier. Serena was too nice for her own damn good.

She made sure that the door was closed, and cleared her throat to garner Darien's attention. "Excuse me, Mr. Shields?"

"Yes?" Darien gathered some papers together, tapped them on the tabletop to align them, and stuffed them in his suitcase before he met Amara's eyes, which, Amara thought, was very pompous of him. She barely restrained a sneer when she caught Serena watching her apprehensively.

Amara blew out a frustrated breath. God, she hated eating crow. "Please don't think too badly of Serena, especially today. We were late because we had a hard time finding a parking space in the garage." She pulled out the parking stub—which she had forgotten to leave on the dashboard, dammit—to show him where they finally ended up parking. "It took us almost a half-hour to find that crappy space."

"I see," Darien replied thoughtfully. He prepared to stand up when Amara spoke again.

"Sir? Another thing: it was my fault that Serena wasn't paying attention to you. You see," she rushed on, aware that both Serena and Darien were staring at her with equally skeptical expressions on their faces. Amara cast around for a reasonably believable story. She swallowed; she knew she was going to look terrible in her new employer's eyes, but she'd do anything for Serena. Anything.

"Yes?" Darien prompted. It was obvious that Amara was going through an internal battle, and it would be interesting to see how she'd get them out of this fiasco. He could have helped her out by letting them off the hook; after all, they weren't _too_ late, and he _had_ seen that Stone kid leering at Serena.

Still, he wanted to assess Amara's relationship with Serena: How close they were, how well they worked together. In a pressure-filled situation, who would come out on top? He knew it was biased of him, but he hoped it would be Serena. He had a lot invested in Serena's internship, and he wasn't going to let her time and talent go to waste because her friend was holding her back.

He sat back in his chair, drumming his fingertips together. No, that wouldn't be good at all. So he raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Amara and awaited her explanation.

Amara swallowed, annoyed with herself for being nervous of a man she'd never met. Granted, this man held her future career in his hands, and was worthy of her anxiety. Still, the thought of kissing anyone's ass for an entire year almost had Amara choking on her own tongue.

She glanced at Serena and mentally sighed. Why couldn't she just leave well enough alone? She clenched her hand, which was safely tucked away in her pocket, into a fist and took a deep breath. "I was the one who distracted Serena during the meeting, so please don't blame her for not paying attention."

Darien considered this just as carefully as he would any business deal with a top client. Finally, he nodded tersely and folded his hands. "I'll let this one go for today, ladies, but I wasn't impressed. This was, after all, your first day and impressions count. And I don't think I have to tell you that your first impression was not a good one.

"First, you were late, a matter which you could not help, I know, but that still doesn't change the fact that you were. Did it occur to either of you to park in the lot across the street when you realized that you were going to be late? No, let me finish," he said, interrupting Amara's objection.

"I'm not disappointed so much with your tardiness as I am with your lack of common sense. We here at MediaWorks pride ourselves on not just producing the very best in advertising media, but also having the best people to provide that service. Our people have the best minds in the industry. If something isn't working, you go with another plan. Don't waste your time, everyone else's time, and most importantly the company's time because you were too stubborn to change tactics.

"Free advice: always have a back-up plan. Always. That's how you get ahead in this business. Don't be afraid to try a different point of view." Darien noticed that while Serena had grown a little pale, Amara looked like she was having trouble keeping her temper in check. Darien raised an eyebrow; that girl was someone he had to keep an eye on. She was volatile, and too proud to take advice from someone who knew better.

At length, Darien nodded. "Alright, Amara. I accept your explanation, and will forget about this matter. But keep in mind that the next time you keep me or, God forbid, a client waiting, there will be no second chance."

Serena visibly gulped and nodded her head meekly. Amara, on the other hand, held her head up high and nodded once, her eyes staring off in the distance at something neither Darien nor Serena could see. Oh yes, she was one to watch, Darien thought. Amara Jones and her stubborn pride could ruin all his plans for Serena's future. And he could not have that at all.

"Alright Amara, that will be all."

Amara bit the inside of her cheek to hold back the rude remark fighting its way out of her mouth. Who the fuck did this suit think she was, dismissing her like a servant? Before she could give him a piece of her mind, she felt Serena's warning gaze on her and cursed in her head. She grit her teeth and forced a saccharine smile on her face. "Thank you, Mr. Shields." God, how the vacuous sycophant routine grated on her nerves. Especially when the ass she was kissing was a man's. She turned on her heel and left before all sensibilities left her and she found herself doing something she regretted.

"Was that all, Mr. Shields?" Serena asked nervously. This man wasn't the same person who had dinner at her house just a month ago. It couldn't possibly be.

Darien shook his head, regretting making Serena feel anxious. "I just wanted to assure you that our work relationship will be separate from our relationship outside the office. I realize that my being friends with your father could put you in an awkward position with your coworkers should they find out, so might I suggest…"

Serena nodded in understanding. "That we pretend not to know each other? That today was the first time we've ever met?"

Darien met Serena's eyes. "It doesn't matter one way or another to me. I was just trying to make your life a little easier. Less competition, less hassles. The advertising industry is filled with overly-ambitious executives, all trying to climb over each other on the social ladder. If someone found out that we knew each other before today, I have no doubt that they'd think you got your position through me, and not your own accomplishments. Do you understand where I'm coming from?"

Serena nodded, suddenly feeling not quite as enthusiastic about her first day on the job as she had been a few hours ago. Part of her wanted to tell Darien to kiss her ass, but another part, the more sensible part, told her that he made sense. If she wanted to avoid the headaches of office-intrigue, she'd have to play down her relationship with Darien. Correction, Serena thought, _Mr. Shields_. It would be foolhardy for a lowly intern to call the CFO by his first name, while those closer to his position still addressed him formally.

So far, Serena thought, her first day as a bonafide adult sucked. First she was horribly late for a very important meeting, then she was caught not paying attention, and now she couldn't even acknowledge the fact that she knew Darien for fear of incurring the wrath of an overzealous employee. Her career could be over before it even started.

She nodded, resigned to a year of kissing ass and pussy-footing around her colleagues. "I understand, Mr. Shields."

A sadness seemed to wash over Darien's eyes when she addressed him formally. Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone. He was back to Business Man mode, all emotion gone from his face. A rigidity settled over him, and before she knew it, the trusted family friend had been replaced with the unfamiliar Mr. Shields, her boss. A stranger sat before her, and she didn't know what to do.

Darien seemed to hesitate, as if he had to deliver bad news but didn't know how to do it. "What is it, Mr. Shields?"

"Now, this is certainly none of my business, but I feel that I have to dispense one more bit of advice before we join the others." Darien paused and frowned. "Sometimes, the people we consider good friends may not necessarily make good coworkers."

Serena stared, wondering if she heard wrong. "Excuse me?"

Darien shifted, pushing his chair back so he could lean his elbows on his knees, bringing him closer to Serena. "In this business, you've got to look out after yourself first, last, and always. It would be a shame to see everything you've worked so hard for go down the drain over a misguided sense of loyalty for a person who's hell-bent on dragging you down."

Serena bristled. He had gone too far and she was going to make sure he knew that. "If you're talking about Amara, Mr. Shields, I'll have you know that she's one of the best people I know. I'm positive that she'd be a great asset to your company, and if you don't think so, I'm sure your competition would be more than happy to disagree."

Darien mentally sighed; he knew she wouldn't take his criticism of Amara well. Hell, if he were in her position, he knew he'd feel the same. But still, he had to get his point across; it was for her own good. "I'm sure Amara is very good at what she does; she wouldn't be here if she wasn't. But from what I've seen, her interpersonal skills need work, and let's face it, this business is all about the interpersonal relationships we build with our clients and the public. Advertising is about knowing how to relate to others, and so far, I haven't seen that from Amara."

"I know Amara could come off as a bit rough around the edges at first, but once you've known her for as long as I have, I'm sure you'll change your mind," she insisted.

"And how long have you known Amara, Serena?"

"I've known her for two years." Darien raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"I'm not willing to wait that long before getting results from her, Serena."

Serena spoke quietly. "Amara is my best friend, and I stand by what I said. I will continue to support her, even if you think she's not worth my time. I won't just drop her as a friend just because you say so. With all due respect, I didn't realize that MediaWorks had a say in whom I chose to befriend." Her voice took on a hauteur that Darien found amusing. He wondered if she even realized she was doing it. Probably not.

He held up his hands in surrender. "Alright. You've got a point. I won't tell you who your friends are, but please just keep what I said in mind?"

"Fine." She agreed too easily; Darien knew it wasn't fine at all. He hoped Amara was every bit as deserving of Serena's undying loyalty as Serena seemed to think. He thought, for now, that it would be best to let the subject drop. For now.

Darien tore his gaze from hers and rose. "Shall we get back to the others?" He waved a hand towards the doors. He waited until she stood, then pushed his chair in and strode towards the doors and held it open for her.

"Sorry for the wait, folks," he said smoothly to the group of interns waiting in the small reception area outside the boardroom. Serena was in such a hurry to get to the meeting, she didn't even notice this room, or her fellow interns, before. Her blond admirer was talking with another girl in the corner of the room, while a self-assured looking man was flipping through a financial magazine.

Amara was stewing by herself by the window, glaring at the city below like a brooding god. She turned at the sound of Darien's voice but kept her expression stubbornly blank. Serena sent her a chiding look, which was promptly ignored, then went to stand beside her mulish friend.

She didn't want to admit it, but a part of her had agreed with Darien about Amara. There were times she worried about her friendship with Amara for much of the same reasons Darien mentioned. Amara could be a difficult person to live with, and nobody knew that better than herself. If Amara happened to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, she made sure everyone knew it and felt it. She hadn't been so bad before, but lately Serena had started to notice that Amara's bad days outnumbered her good.

But she'd be damned before she admitted that to anyone but herself, most especially her new boss­­­­, family friend or not. Amara had been there for her during some of the most difficult things in her life; if it hadn't been for Amara, she might've pursued a degree in computer science instead of mass communications. And look where she is now. One of the five students selected out of thousandsto intern at one of the largest advertising agencies in the world. If it hadn't been for Amara, she might've spent the rest of her life doing something she hated.

So if standing by her best friend was going to be a problem for Mr. Darien Shields, that was just going to be his tough luck. She didn't report to him or MediaWorks after office hours, so having Darien suggest that Amara wasn't worthy of her friendship rankled her.

"So, what did he have to say?" Amara asked sullenly.

Serena looked around to make sure that no one was listening. "He just warned me to keep the fact that my father is his friend under wraps," she replied, her voice lowered. There was no way in hell she was going to tell Amara the rest of the conversation, so she kept her eyes averted on the guise of watching out for any eavesdroppers.

"Why would he do that?" Amara asked sharply, drawing the attention of the blond surfer boy. He sent her an apologetic smile when she glared at him.

Serena tried to ignore Amara's lack of interpersonal skills, which was exactly what Darien had tried to tell her earlier. She thrust her chin out defiantly as if Darien was standing in front of her. "Because it might seem strange to some people that I got a _very_ prestigious internship at the very company my dad's best friend works for, the very friend who, quite conveniently, turns out to be the person in charge of hiring the interns."

"But that's complete bullshit. You _worked_ for this internship; hell, you didn't even _know_ Mr. Shields until after you were accepted," Amara protested, her voice rising with righteous indignation.

"Keep your voice down, Amara." Serena looked around again, and sighed with relief when she saw that Darien was talking to another executive who happened to wander past the boardroom, and that the others were talking amongst themselves. "Nevertheless, the fact that I'm working at my father's best friend's company under his supervision could seem suspicious to anyone looking to climb the corporate ladder. I don't want to cause any trouble with anyone here and jeopardize my position, so please don't say anything about it to anyone."

Amara nodded. "Don't worry, Serena; no one will hear it from me that you got an in in the company, even if he _is_ a jerk." There was a teasing glint in her eye so Serena knew all was okay again.

Serena poked Amara in the side where she knew she was ticklish and stuck her tongue out. "He's not so bad, Amara. He's just doing his job."

"Job, my ass," Amara sneered, watching him chat with surfer boy. "He just likes being a hard-ass."

Serena would've liked to differ, but Darien chose that moment to call everyone's attention. "Alright folks, I'm sure that everyone's had a chance to get to know each other by now, so we're going to move on to the next part of the orientation."

Darien waited until they had all gathered closer. He had been watching Serena and Amara conversing by the window out of the corner of his eye and, unless Amara had more self-restraint than he thought, he guessed that Serena didn't tell her about the latter part of their conversation. _Good girl_, he thought. Even now she's demonstrating the promise he saw in her when they first met.

"If you'll all follow me, I'll take you all on a quick tour, and direct you to your work areas."

The interns all filed obediently behind him as he took them on all four levels of MediaWorks, from the mailroom to the top executive levels. He dropped a few of them off along the way in other departments until it was just Serena and Amara left in the Finance Department.

"Well, ladies. As you might've guessed by now, this is the department you've been placed. I know that the two of you have applied for the creative department, but to be honest, with the recent takeover of Global Advertising, we've got all the people we need. This was the only other place I could place you where your skills wouldn't be wasted," he explained almost apologetically, making Serena feel almost sorry for him.

"It's okay, Mr. Shields," she assured him, forgetting momentarily her ire with him. "We don't mind, do we Amara?" Serena nudged Amara when she remained stubbornly silent.

"No, we don't mind, Mr. Shields," Amara replied. Darien and Amara eyed each other for a few seconds, making Serena feel as though she was caught in the middle of a tug-of-war. Finally, Amara broke the eye contact, which Darien took as a sign that he could continue.

He gestured to two empty cubicles, one on either side of thepath. "Take your pick; they'll be your home away from home for the rest of the year."

Serena and Amara looked in each of the cubicles, taking note of the minuscule size and lack of personality. Since both were identical in every way, they both shrugged and claimed the cubicle closest to them. Darien smiled, pleased that they were finally getting settled. "Well, I'll be heading back to my office," he said, pointing down the hall to a door with a brass nameplate which both girls assumed bore his name. "That's my office over there. If either of you have any concerns or questions, don't hesitate to give me a knock." With that, he turned and walked away to his office, saying hi to the grizzled old lady Serena assumed was his secretary before closing the door softly behind him.

Serena and Amara took that as a sign to get settled into their own 'offices' and finally begin their foray into their first adult job. "See ya later," Amara said, disappearing into her cubicle.

"Later," Serena replied, going into hers. She took a cursory glance at the three grey walls that marked the boundary of her office space, and wondered when the novelty of having her own cubicle would wear off. From the looks of it, she guessed two to three hours.

There wasn't much to say about it: there was a desk with two drawers, the bottom of which was deep and had a lock where she assumed she could put her personal items, an Obusformedesk chair, a dilapidated computer that looked as if it had seen better days, and a small filing cabinet beside her desk. The soft walls doubled as a bulletin board, and already Serena could see a constellation of black-headed pushpins on the wall to her right. Maybe she could get a calendar from home and add a bit of personality to this place. Her kitty calendar should comply with the office rules; she doubted her _Santa Monica Firemen_ calendar, which hung in a place of honour on the wall opposite her bed, would.

Not more than two minutes after she had settled in, a woman in her early thirties popped her head in. "Hi," she greeted cheerfully. "You the new intern?"

Serena swivelled in her chair and smiled, eager to make a good impression on her colleague this time around. "Hi, my name's Serena Lombard. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too, Serena. My name's Belinda Wright and I'm the Senior Accountant in this department. Welcome to MediaWorks." She gestured to a thick file folder she had with her. "I was wondering…"

"Yes?"

"If Mr. Shields hasn't given you anything to do yet, if you could photocopy six sets of the financial report, collate and staple them, and put them in the mail slots of the people in this list..." She opened the folder, and showed Serena a list of names and the departments they worked in.

"I'd be happy to, Ms. Wright."

"Belinda, please. And could you get those out ASAP, please?" Belinda handed Serena the folder, then snapped her fingers as though she just remembered something else. "Oh, and when you're done, could you come to my office, please? I've got a few other tasks that need attending. What a great time for my assistant to go on maternity leave. I've got to get the quarter-end report done, and take a look at the budget for the Yardley account…" Belinda began ticking off the monumental list of tasks she had to do before the end of the week. Finally, just as Serena began to realize that those tasks were meant for _her_ and was beginning to feel somewhat daunted, Belinda stopped and smiled sympathetically. "I know it sounds like a lot on the first day, but you'll get used to working at this pace. You won't have a choice." She chuckled, sounding both rueful and ominous at the same time.

"Don't forget to bring a pen and pad with you before you come to my office; you're gonna want to take notes."

When Belinda was gone, Serena glanced across the aisle into Amara's cubicle and saw that she was getting 'Belinda-d' by another co-worker, this time a model-thin woman who looked to be just a few years older than them.

The smug expression on the woman's face told Serena that she was once at the bottom rung and now, with the introduction of the interns into the company, had been elevated to a slightly higher status. It was plain to see that she loved being on the giving end of issuing orders, and the look on Amara's face said quite the opposite. Serena sighed; if Amara kept up her surly attitude, she'd find herself out of a job before she even got to start her new one.

She frowned, remembering her conversation with Darien. If Amara didn't change her attitude in a few days, she'd have to have a talk with her and explain—gently, because Amara didn't take criticism well—the situation to her.

But for now, she was due for a meeting with the copier. Which begged the question: Where _was_ the copier?

Amy sat behind her desk, silently fuming. That little blonde twit had knocked into her just outside the boardroom, causing her to drop all the photocopies she had made onto the floor, and didn't even stop to help her pick them up. All two-hundred plus pages now had to be resorted in their proper order; at least the pages were numbered so she wouldn't have to read every single page to figure out how to arrange them.

The intercom beside her buzzed to life. "Amy," Darien's disembodied voice said, "Do you have those photocopies I asked you to make this morning?"

Amy bit her bottom lip. "Yes, sir, but I have to finish sorting them. If you'll just give me a few more minutes," she said, knowing full well he wouldn't be pleased. Darien Shields didn't strike her as a man who like to be kept waiting. ****

"Didn't you set the photocopier to collate the pages?"

"Yes sir, I did, but on my way to your desk, someone bumped into me and made me drop all the papers. She didn't even stop to help," she added, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

The intercom was silent for a few seconds, normally a bad sign when it came to Mr. Shields. "Okay, Amy. That will be all."

Amy glared at the intercom, knowing that Mr. Shields wasn't happy with her. _Well I'm not happy with you, either_, she thought mutinously. _It's not my fault people are inconsiderate these days_.

"Excuse me," an all-too familiar voice said. "Could you tell me where the copier is?"

Amy raised her head slowly, her expression unreadable as she was met face-to-face with the girl whose death she was planning a hundred and ten different ways in her mind. Needless to say, she did _not_ feel inclined to help her one little bit.

Serena squirmed under the woman's heated glare and stony silence, and suddenly remembered why she had seemed so familiar. "You're the one I accidentally ran into earlier," she said, her voice full of apology. "I'm really sorry I didn't help you pick up your papers, but my friend and I were really late for our orientation meeting with Mr. Shields."

Amy 'humphed' and went back to her work, completely ignoring Serena and her question. "Are those the papers you were carrying?"

This girl just did not know when to quit, Amy observed. "No, I'm just rearranging these for fun because I don't have quite enough to do," she snapped. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to my playtime activity here."

"Oh," Serena said softly. "If you want any help, I'd be happy to…"

"You've 'helped' me out enough for one day, thank you. The copy room is down the hall to your right; the access code for the photocopier is 3-2-1-4. Mr. Shields was expecting this document ten minutes ago, so if you don't mind…"

Serena felt stung by the woman's harsh attitude and the obvious dismissal. Still, she was determined to salvage what was left of an already crappy day. "Well, my name's Serena so if you need anything, just ask." She snuck a glance at the brass nameplate on top of the desk. "Amy."

Amy grunted but didn't say anything. She hated it when people she just met called her by her first name, as if they had known each other all their lives. Serena left her alone after a few moments of silence.

Amy watched Serena make her way to the copy room, and shook her head. Some people just didn't have a clue.

"Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the Office of the Registrar?" Irene asked a friendly-looking twenty-something who was obviously on her way to class.

"Sure." The girl pointed to the left at a building in the distance. "There it is."

Irene breathed a sigh of relief. The campus was larger than she thought, and she had been lost for the past half-hour. "Thanks a lot."

"No problem, ma'am." The girl waved and headed in another direction. Irene cringed. _Ma'am_. That made her sound like a relic. Or worse, her _mother_.

_Shake it off, Irene_, she told herself, squaring her shoulders. She wasn't going to let a bunch of kids see her sweat. If Mina and Serena knew just how nervous she was to be around a bunch of kids in their age-group, they'd probably lose respect for her.

She boldly marched up the stairs leading to the Office of the Registrar, and halted, her jaw dropping unceremoniously. _There's so many people_, she thought dismally. The line wound around itself _twice_ like a coiled snake warming itself on a rock. There was no escaping it; not lining up meant she wouldn't be able to pick up her student ID, which she should've gotten in the mail a couple of weeks ago had she mailed her tuition fee by the specified date.

And she would've paid her tuition fee on time if Ken hadn't accidentally knocked the envelope containing the cheque off of the pedestal table where it remained unseen behind the umbrella stand for almost two weeks. By the time she noticed it lying there, it was overdue and she almost lost her spot. But it was hard to stay mad at Ken; he had been so apologetic, offering to take her out for dinner at their favourite restaurant, Lita's, to make it up to her.

She sighed fondly. He was being so supportive about this. Just last night she had lain awake, worried that she was too old to go back to school, that all her years away from it had turned her brains into mush, but Ken had been right there, kissing her worries away. She looked at the line-up of disinterested college kids and smirked at their blank expressions; if they had her sex life, they probably would have a little more colour in their cheeks.

"What's so funny?" a deep voice whispered close to her ear. She started, and turned around indignantly. The lecture she was about to give on personal space and her need for it died in her throat when she got a look at the fine specimen of manhood standing before her, grinning rakishly as if he knew the impure thoughts she was suddenly having.

"Nothing," she stammered, mentally slapping herself in the forehead for reverting to her 15-year old self. She squared her shoulders and gave him a stern look over her rim-less glasses, the look Mina and Serena referred to as 'The Mom Look'. "I don't appreciate people who invade my personal space like that, especially when I don't know them."

The boy—no, _man_—held up his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, okay. It's just that your perfume was so enticing, I had to come in for a closer whiff." He grinned lopsidedly at his awful delivery of an even more awful pick-up line.

As much as Irene wanted to grin along with him, the mother in her couldn't help but frown in disapproval. "I'm married," she informed him, blandly showing off her wedding ring.

The guy shrugged good-naturedly. "Can't blame a guy for trying," he replied. He leaned down so that he was at eye-level with her. "Your husband is a very lucky man."

"I make sure he knows that every night," she replied saucily, fighting to keep the grin off her face. "Now if you'll excuse me, the line's moving."

"By all means," he said, motioning her forward.

She knew she shouldn't do it, but the young girl in her cried out to be released if only for a moment. She bent over at the waist to pick up her backpack on the floor, straightening ever so slowly to make sure he got the full view.

"Yep, your husband is a _very_ lucky man indeed." Irene smiled to herself, and mentally turned some cartwheels. College was going to be _fun_.

Raye drummed her fingers impatiently on the desktop, willing the clock on the wall to move so that she could finally get out of this school and go home. She hated this school, hated the students and teachers, and most of all, hated her father for accepting the transfer to this land of Botox injections and sunscreen.

She glared resentfully at the teacher trying in vain to teach a bunch of disinterested kids the wonders of algebra. Seriously, who gave a shit if hypothetical Train A would arrive at the station two hours earlier than Train B if Train A travelled in a northeast direction at 30 miles per hour for 12 hours?

The one good thing about her new school was that it wasn't run by strict Catholic nuns who ran her old private school like a Fascist regime. Sister Bernadine would've had choked on her crucifix if Raye came to school with the purple streaks she was sporting in her hair, a gift to herself as soon as she found out that she was going to a school with no uniforms. Granted, her father almost pulled a Sister Bernadine himself when she came back from the salon, but he was easily won over as soon as she planted a doting kiss on his cheek and gave him that vulnerable, doe-eyed look, the one that said she'd cry for a week and make his life miserable if he didn't like it. She grinned triumphantly when her father swallowed deeply and told her the streaks brought out the colour in her eyes.

Her father was so easy to wrap around her little finger. She sometimes thought it paid to cultivate her insecurities; her father just couldn't say no to his motherless little girl, now could he? She figured she was doing Heather a favour; she didn't have anyone to pave the way for her, so to speak, so Raye wanted to make sure her little sister didn't have as tough a time as she did by softening their father up now while Heather was still young and good. She figured by the time Heather reached her age, their father would already know what to expect, having raised one teenaged daughter already.

And Trista called her a bad influence. That woman didn't know what she was talking about. She sucked as a housekeeper, which made her wonder why her father kept her on. Maybe her dad liked Creole food more than she thought, cause all Trista seemed to know how to cook was gumbo, jambalaya and beans and rice.

Or maybe they were doing it.

Raye shut her eyes at the repugnant thought. It was no secret--at least to her--that Trista had a crush on dear old dad, but the thought of it being mutual just sickened her. For one thing, Trista was too young for her dad--she had to be at least ten years younger than him. Either that, or she was one of the Botox-injecting crowd. For another, her father was still in love with her mother.

Sure, her dad had gone out on some dates, and yes, he had been "involved" with a few women before, and Raye wasn't naïve enough to believe that her dad abstained from sex since her mother died--it _had_ been 12 years, after all. There was no way her straight-arrow dad would stoop to banging his housekeeper. Talk about cliché.

Dousing all the mental images of her father taking up with the housekeeping--a less funny _Who's the Boss?_ situation in reverse--with lighter fluid, she resolved to return to the lesson at hand…and quickly found herself lost in a sea of mathematical jargon she couldn't figure out. Damn cockiness. If she didn't hurry, Mrs. Chapman just might erase--shit.

"Fuck," she muttered under her breath as she watched the teacher erasing the complex set of equations from the blackboard. She tried to follow along with the next lesson, but without understanding the previous one, she was hopelessly lost. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"Need some help, newbie?" Raye froze when she felt warm air next to her ear. She whirled around and saw a male face hidden behind shaggy brown hair. He looked completely dishevelled, like a sheepdog in a surfer boy's clothing, although, from what she could see, he looked like no dog she had ever seen before.

"If I needed your help, I must be in worst shape than I thought." She sent him a patented Shields glare. "And it's Raye, not 'newbie'."

He chuckled good-naturedly and ran his hand over his stubble-covered chin. Raye could almost see warm, chocolate brown eyes twinkling at her from behind his overgrown fringe. "I stand corrected, _Raye_."

Her father made sure that their move to California would coincide with the summer vacation months so that she and Heather could be enrolled in their new schools at the start of the school year. In all the time she had been living here, Raye had met and spoken with many native Californians and not once had she encountered someone who spoke with the typified surfer boy accent that this human sheepdog did. She had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't fake.

Raye was about to deliver a biting retort when another voice cut through their whispered conversation. "Ms. Shields, I would hate to have to send you to detention on your first day."

Violet eyes flashed as she tried to reign in her fiery temper. She turned around in her seat to face her teacher, who was pulling a pretty decent impersonation of Sister Bernadine. "I'm sorry, Si--er, Mrs. Chapman. I was just asking…" She broke off when she realized she didn't even know Surfer Boy's name.

"Chad," he supplied with a knowing smirk.

"Chad," she repeated through gritted teeth, "What the answer was for the last question. You erased it before I could copy it down."

Mrs. Chapman gave her a disapproving look that would make Sister Bernadine proud. "If you were paying attention, you wouldn't need the notes on the blackboard."

"I'm a visual learner." Raye folded her arms and issued a challenging stare. She raised her left eyebrow for good measure. She inwardly smirked when she saw the teacher blink. Victory was hers.

"Next time, either ask me directly or wait until class is over before you ask a classmate for their notes. I don't like having my class disrupted."

"With all due respect, Mrs. Chapman, the class wasn't disrupted until you started reading me the riot act over what appears to be such a minor issue. But let bygones be bygones, shall we? You can go on with the lesson now." She smiled innocently, the very picture of an eager student.

Mrs. Chapman narrowed her eyes in thinly-veiled contempt and struggled to compose herself. She grabbed a piece of chalk and began to write another complex problem on the board, sending tiny chalk fragments flying.

"Nicely done," Chad murmured silkily into her ear. Raye allowed herself a small, triumphant grin as she looked at him over her shoulder.

"I thought so."

The office was dark, fluorescent lights flickered, and somewhere on the floor, a vacuum cleaner hummed as the night custodians began their work. Silence reigned over the empty office except for the light tapping of computer keys.

It was six thirty, an hour-and–a-half after mostly everyone had gone home. Serena had elected to stay until she had made a considerable dent in the mountain of paperwork Belinda had left behind for her.

Serena slumped in her chair and glanced across the aisle into Amara's empty cubicle. Amara had reluctantly gone home half-an-hour ago at Serena's insistence. She had a karate class to attend that night, and Serena didn't want her friend to miss it on her account.

She sighed out loud. She hoped Belinda was enjoying her night because from the looks of things, Serena would be stuck doing _her_ work for at least two more hours. Lazy bitch. Serena tapped the keys furiously, anxious to get this shit work done so she could go home and enjoy what was left of her evening by grabbing a quick meal over the sink before going to bed. She was exhausted. But hey, at least she was being paid.

_Think of the money, think of the money._ And there it was, her second wind kicking in. She hoped it lasted long enough for her to put a serious dent into her work before she gave up for the evening.

Serena worked doggedly for another hour, channelling all of her energy into completing her task. So focused was she that she didn't even hear the heavy footsteps making their way to her cubicle. She almost jumped out of her skin when she heard a voice behind her.

"Serena? What are you still doing here?"

Heart pounding, slightly furious that she had been interrupted and more than slightly embarrassed that she was caught unaware, she whirled around to face the intruder. "Oh, Mr. Shields. I didn't know you were still here."

Darien ignored her question. "Everyone has left already. Don't tell me you're planning to stay here overnight."

Serena shrugged noncommittally. At the rate she was going, she might very well have to spend the night at the office. "I was just trying to finish typing up this report for Belinda."

Darien frowned and looked over her shoulder to the file that lay open on her desk. "She's had that report pending since the beginning of the month. Don't tell me she just dumped it all on you."

Again, Serena shrugged. As much as she disliked Belinda at the moment, she also didn't want to get her into trouble on her first day. "Um, Belinda has been swamped with work since her assistant had to go on maternity leave, so she asked me to help her out a little."

Darien was quiet, mulling Serena's explanation over. Belinda's assistant had given birth about a week ago, leaving her to find a temporary assistance in her absence. That meant she had three weeks to get at least a bulk of the report done before her assistant left. Looks like he'll have to have a talk with Belinda about the benefits of time management.

"Well, why don't you shelf that report for tonight and go home? You look exhausted."

Serena moved her head from side to side, trying to work out the crick in her neck. "Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing."

"Well then, come on; I'll walk you out. I'm going home myself." He waited while she gathered her purse and jacket, and turned off her computer after making sure that she backed up the file on a disk.

"I didn't know you worked this late, Mr. Shields." She pressed the button for the elevator.

"It's after hours, Serena, and we're all alone. I think it's safe to call me Darien now," he said wryly as he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the first level of the parking garage.

Serena blushed. "Yeah, well, after that talk we had in the boardroom, I wasn't too sure if I was still allowed to call you that, even out of the office."

"Yeah, about that, Serena," he said hesitantly. "I wanted to apologize to you for what I said about Amara. I shouldn't have put you in the position of having to defend your best friend to your boss."

Serena raised her eyebrow. He wasn't sorry about the things he said about Amara, just that he had put her in the middle. This was as good an apology as she was ever going to get, and she had a feeling that Darien had to dig deep within himself to find that mediocre apology. Still… "Thank you."

They rode the rest of the way down in silence until the doors opened into the garage. The silence was stifling and Serena was glad that the long, slow ride was over. She was one step closer to home and dinner and her nice, comfy bed.

Darien held his arm out to prevent the doors from closing as Serena stepped out ahead of him. "Where'd you park your car? I'll walk you there."

Serena stopped short just as the doors closed, mentally smacking her head as she realized that Amara had taken the car with her.

"Shit."

"What's wrong?" Serena turned to him in distress.

"I'm such an idiot. Amara went home hours ago…and so did her car." Serena turned around, reaching behind Darien to press the elevator button again.

"What are you doing?"

Serena smiled ruefully. "I'm going to go back up to the lobby and call a cab from there."

The doors opened and Serena was started forward when she felt a hand on her forearm. "What kind of a gentleman would I be if I allowed you to take a cab home when I can just drive you there? Besides, your father would kill me if I did."

For the first time that day, Serena smiled genuinely at Darien and he smiled back. The change in his face was amazing; the lines around his eyes softened, taking a few years off his weary face. Finally, Serena saw the man who had visited her home a few months ago. With the memory of the man came the memory of the lascivious things her sister said about him.

Serena tore her gaze away from Darien, blushing like an offended virgin. Damn Mina and her oversexed imagination. Serena belatedly realized that Darien was still talking to her.

"So how about it?"

"Huh?" Darien chuckled.

"I see I have the same effect on my employees as I do with my daughters. I was asking you if you wanted a ride home."

"Well, I don't want to be a bother…" Serena smiled innocently when Darien pretended to glare at her. "But since you twisted my arm, how could I refuse?"

"If you'll just follow me to your carriage, mademoiselle. I'll have you home in no time." Darien led her to a row of reserved parking spots very close to the elevator. The benefits of being on the top. He wanted to gloat, but, remembering the reason why she and Amara were both late that day, thought better of it.

"Hop in," Darien said once the doors were unlocked. He waited until Serena had buckled up before starting the engine. "Where to?" ****

Serena gave him her address. "That's only ten minutes away from our house. I'll have to make it a point to invite you over for dinner one night. I'm sure the girls would love to see you again."

"I'd like that." She watched Darien swipe his parking pass through the scanner and the motorized barrier to lift up, allowing the car to exit the garage, and asked,"How do they like California?"

Darien came to a stop in front of a red light. "Heather's doing okay. She's met a nice girl around her age next door and now they're practically inseparable. Apparently, her new friend is the only girl in a family of four kids, and has been starving for another girl to play with. Raye, I'm not too sure about. She spent all summer lazing around the house doing nothing. Then she complained that her vacation sucked. It's their first day of school today and I hope it went well."

Serena smiled reassuringly at him. "I'm sure it did. Heather seems like a friendly girl, and Raye…well, she's got the advantage of being the new kid from New York. I'm sure someone's bound to approach her and ask her what the Big Apple's like. Maybe Raye just needs someone to show her the fun places to hang out. I'd be happy to, if she'd like."

"I'm sure she'd prefer you to going around with me and Heather. I'll be sure to mention it to her, thanks." Darien spared her a glance as they approached another red light, catching Serena in the middle of toeing her shoes off. Her actions caused her skirt to rise just a little, letting Darien have a peek of a smooth, creamy thigh. _She has nice legs_.

Darien forced himself to look away, berating himself for doing something so stupid. _She could've seen you drooling over her legs, you idiot. Stop behaving like a teenager and show some self-control!_ He cleared his throat. "Feet hurt?"

Serena looked up, grinning sheepishly. "Yeah. It's their maiden voyage," she replied, gesturing at her fallen shoes. "They hurt like a mother but they're so pretty."

"Fashion before comfort, huh?"

"I find that the more a shoe hurts, the prettier it is. Oh, turn right here." Darien slowed into the turn, not even bothering with the turn signal. He caught Serena looking at him reproachfully.

"Uh, I don't recommend doing that."

"You drive just like Amara. She thinks the roads are her own personal race track."

Darien said nothing, not wanting to say just what he thought of Amara. He passed a slow-going Cadillac driven by a senior citizen too short to see over the dashboard. Which was probably why he was driving as slow as he was.

"I suppose you'll have me driving like that geezer over there?"

"Nah," Serena replied breezily. "You'll be there soon enough." She laughed out loud at the look on Darien's face. Her father had the same expression on his face when he discovered his first grey hair on his 40th birthday. He had sulked the whole day, only deigning to come out of the bathroom when her mom threatened to give his birthday cake to a homeless shelter. Serena snuck a peek at Darien. He had little grey hairs sprinkled amidst the black at his temple, making him look like a distinguished Ivy League professor.

"You're lucky that after raising two daughters, I've grown accustomed to the impertinence your generation has for their elders. What?" he asked, catching Serena staring at him.

She blushed. "You're not that old," she replied softly, smiling at him. She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, breathing deeply. In no time at all, she fell into a light sleep, unaware that Darien was periodically sneaking glances at her out of the corner of his eye.

Darien came to another intersection, slowing down to allow another car to drive across, and just watched her. She seemed so peaceful, it was a shame to disturb her.

"Serena?" he said softly.

"Hmm?" She burrowed deeper against the headrest, not wanting to wake up.

"We're on your street now. You have to tell me where your building is."

"Oh," Serena said, slowly waking up. She pointed across the street to a short, four-story building with quaint flower boxes underneath most of the windows. "There it is."

Darien pulled over next to the fire hydrant in front of the building and kept the engine idling as Serena slipped her shoes back on and unbuckled her seat belt. "Thanks for the ride, Darien."

"Anytime." They sat in their seats looking awkwardly at each other. Finally, Darien cleared his throat. "So I'll see you tomorrow at the office?"

Serena's hand lingered over the door handle. "Bright and early. Goodbye Darien." With that, she opened the door and gracefully stepped out of the car. Darien waited while she fished out her keys and unlocked the door. She turned her head over her shoulder and waved casually back at him, her other hand on the doorknob. He returned the wave, and then she was gone.

Darien sat there for a couple of minutes, silently tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. He was watching a dark window two floors above him intently, waiting. When a light finally turned on, illuminating the frilly curtains framing the window, he put the car back in gear and drove away.

Across town, a Greyhound bus just pulled into the empty bus station. The travel-weary bus let out a tired-sounding hiss as the driver opened the doors to let his passengers out. After travelling with the same group of people for over eight hours, he couldn't wait for the whole lot of them to get the hell off his bus so he could go home and catch what was left of the ball game.

"Thank you for riding Grey--aw, what's the frigging point?" he said as the tired passengers got off the bus single file. When he thought the last passenger had left, he pulled the lever to close the doors so that he could drive to the garage. He glanced at the rear-view mirror just to make sure that all the passengers had gotten off. He sucked his teeth; it appeared that there was one last person in the back of the bus, asleep.

"Hey buddy," he called to the sleeping man. "Wakey-wakey. This is the last stop. Now wake the fuck up so I can go home," he added under his breath.

The man stirred, taking his time in getting up. The bus driver was getting impatient. "Hey man, hurry up. I don't have all night, you know." When the man finally sat up, the driver finally got a good look at him in the mirror. Shit, it just figured. This was the guy he had picked up at his first stop in Windsor. From the looks of him when he got on the bus, this guy had been travelling for quite a while.

"I'm coming, keep your shirt on," the guy mumbled as he swung his duffel bag over his shoulder.

_Took you long enough,_ the bus driver thought. Something told him that it wouldn't be a smart idea to say it out loud, though. He had been driving a bus for 20-odd years, and had picked up a lot of men like this guy. Hard, bitter men pissed off at the world and everyone in it. He had learned quite early on in his illustrious career as a driver for people too damn cheap to fly on a plane that being their therapist wasn't on his job description. Now, the only ones he cared to listen to were busty blondes wearing skin-tight shirts.

Brunettes worked too, in a pinch.

The stranger finally worked his way up to the front of the bus, where the driver had already opened the door, telling him silently to hurry the fuck off his bus before he called the supervisor on his lethargic ass. As soon as he was off the last step, the doors snapped shut and the bus was already backing up.

Outside, Greg dug out a pack of cigarettes from the front pocket of his worn leather jacket, cursing when he realized that he had smoked his last one at the last rest stop. He threw the empty pack away in the nearest garbage can and sat down on a bench, weighing his options.

It had taken him a long while to get here. A couple of months ago, he was at the height of his career in Seattle until some prick named Darien Shields decided to absorb the company he worked for into MediaWorks. Not only had Greg lost his job, but also his apartment and second-hand car when he couldn't pay the bills. Finally, when the last job interview had blown up in his face because he was late getting to the place--the fucking bus broke down in the middle of the damn street--he decided to cut his losses in Seattle and do what he had been dreaming of doing ever since he had learned the name of the man responsible for him losing his job.

He closed his account, taking the paltry one-hundred dollars left in it to buy a bus ticket that would get him as close as possible to Los Angeles. It wasn't easy, but he finally made it here after making countless stops and working countless shit jobs just so he could afford to buy another bus ticket to the next shit town and have the whole shit cycle start all over again.

And to think he had once been able to afford three-hundred dollar Gucci shoes. Well, he had had enough of hauling scrap metal around in a junkyard, or bussing tables in some dive off the freeway, or painting some bitch's house in the scorching Nevada sun. He grinned, remembering how that same bitch had fucked him blind one day while her husband was out of town. Best two-hundred he had ever made, that's for sure.

Aside from the obvious side benefits his new transient life afforded, he was tired of it. He wanted his old life back, and the only way he could think of to get it was to make sure Darien Shields paid. He didn't know how, but he was going to make sure that he did.

And, Greg thought, spotting a phone booth with a telephone directory in it, he was going to pay soon.

* * *

I want to say a big thank you to my editor Ladysolo for going through this chapter (and the previous chapters) with a superfine-toothed comb. She's a great editor and an even better writer, so check her stories out and drop her a line—I want another chapter of Merletto 2, dammit!

I also want to say thanks to everyone who read and reviewed this story; the feedback I got was very encouraging and much appreciated. Please feel free to drop me a line either through email or private message on Aria's Ink. Thanks a bunch!

PS: I apologize if the scenes in this chapter seem to change so abruptly; in my original document, all the scenes are separated by three 's. I've tried twice to insert these between each scene change, and even tried to add an extra space, but FFN keeps editing them out. Since it's late and I'm getting annoyed with this site, the abrupt scene changes will have to do. Sorry about that, but we've all got FFN to blame.


	5. Chapter Four

Here's the next chapter. It's shorter than the previous chapters and to be honest, the rest of the chapters will probably be around this length or shorter. I think it's better to have frequent updates with shorter chapters, as opposed to the other way around, don't you? Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

---

Mina glanced at the slip of paper in her hand and then cast a dubious look at the building in front of her. The address matched the location, so why did she have the feeling that she was in the wrong place? Her agent told her that he'd racked up an audition for her with a director who was looking for someone who looked "fresh-faced" and was in great shape to star in his new movie.

Mina jumped at the chance—her rent was overdue and she would be damned if she had to borrow money from her parents to pay it. Again. She couldn't stomach another lecture from her father about going back to school to earn her degree and "get a real job" while her mother just sat there with a disappointed look on her face, probably mentally comparing her to Serena.

And so, with no money to pay for a cab, Mina found herself taking the bus across town to a run-down old hotel that looked like it was one day away from being condemned. With her crappy luck, it would probably collapse around her as she gave her "audition". She no longer held out any hope that she would ever get a real audition through legitimate means; almost every single audition she went to required her to give whoever was evaluating the actresses a blow job. Those that didn't want the blow job were dirty old men who liked to look at her goods but couldn't get it up anymore. So far her acting resume included a bunch of independent movies she would sooner banish to hell than ever watch: a walk-on role in a popular sitcom and a role as a skeptical audience member in a cooking gadget infomercial that only ran at 3 am. If she wanted to have a roof over her head and food in her stomach, she was going to have to make a few sacrifices. She had to make it big soon—she promised herself that if she didn't find steady work within a month, she was going to quit acting.

She could just imagine her mother's frown creasing her unlined brow and see the unspoken "I told you so" in her eyes. She knew that her mother tried to hide her disappointment each and every time Mina did they didn't approve of. Like the time she got a belly button piercing when she was just 14. And the time she snuck out of the house to attend a rock concert—all the way in Las Vegas—when she was 16.

Or the time she quit college to take up nude modelling, and eventually acting, when she was 19. She could still remember the disapproval and disappointment in her parents' eyes when she made her announcement during dinner one night, but she quickly tried to allay their fears by telling them of the audition she had booked with a little-known director looking to cast a female lead in his new movie. And so began the illustrious film career she was quickly getting tired of. But there was no way she'd ever admit that to her mother, Serena's biggest fan.

She was tired of looking like a pauper next to her sister who was now making a shitload of money for being a glorified gofer. Their parents paid half of Serena's rent each month, because "she can't work and get those grades at the same time", a less-than-subtle jab at Mina's career choice. They told her that if she decided to give up acting, they would pay half her rent until she got her degree. Mina politely declined their offer.

A week later, she was on their doorstep, begging them for a loan because she couldn't afford to pay rent that month. It was a humiliating experience, one that she vowed never to repeat. She tried not to let her father's anger daunt her or notice her mother's quiet disapproval as she practically prostrated herself at their feet, trying to convince them why she needed the loan. Finally, after two hours of alternating between apologizing and ass -kissing, her father wrote her the cheque and left the room, leaving Mina and Irene alone.

Mina could practically sense the lecture taking shape in her mother's head as she folded the cheque and tucked it away in her wallet for safekeeping. If only her wallet always contained this much cash, she thought wistfully. She glanced at her mother and said, "I'll pay you guys back as soon as I can."

"It's not about the money, Mina," her mother said wearily. "We'd gladly give you the money, if you just forget about this silly acting business."

Mina's cheeks turned red with a mixture of anger, frustration and humiliation. "Silly? Mom, you're talking about what I do for a living."

"And what kind of living are you doing?" Irene retorted. "You star in sleazy movies where you appear half-naked more times than you speak. You live in a shoebox apartment that you can't even pay for. You have no money, no degree, no future—"

"Isn't this a bit of the pot calling the kettle black?" Mina asked quietly, her voice seething with barely-control rage. "At least I'm trying to earn a living instead of puttering around an empty house all day, judging people from behind glass walls. You don't have a degree, you've never worked a day in your life after you got knocked up, all your money comes from dad. Who are you to judge me?"

Irene looked stricken and Mina felt bad for that, but she thought it had to be said. She was tired of feeling like a leper every single time she visited her parents' home. It was time to get everything out in the open; maybe then her parents could begin to understand her.

"How could you say that to me? I gave up everything for you, and still you can say these things to me?" Irene knew it was horrible to hate her child but at that moment, hate was the only emotion she felt for Mina. The words she said hit close to home; she had always been insecure about being "just a stay-at-home mom". Maybe the ungrateful girl needed a taste of her own medicine.

"Why couldn't you be a little more like Serena?" she asked, pretending not to see the hurt in her child's eyes. Irene hardened her heart, even though she felt a small stab of guilt for her petty barb. Besides, Mina could use a reality check.

Mina sighed; she could never measure up to Saint Serena in her mother's eyes, so why should she even bother? "You can't even pretend to like me, can you?" Mina asked sadly. Slowly, wordlessly, she rose from her seat and gathered her things. "You know what, never mind. Forget I asked."

Irene raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness. It was true and she couldn't deny it: She had always unconsciously favoured Serena to Mina ever since Serena had been old enough to talk. She tried to hide it from Mina but perhaps she didn't do such a good job of hiding her favouritism after all.

"I didn't ask to be born at that time in your life; it's not fair of you to blame me for your regrets," Mina said as she opened the front door. She tapped her purse with her hand. "I'll pay you back next month."

Irene reached out to her daughter, but even though Mina hadn't gone more than one step away from her, she knew that the distance between them was already too great. "Mina…"

"Next month." She didn't turn back.

True to her word, Mina managed to land a role in a TV pilot being filmed for the upcoming fall season, and she made enough money to pay her parents back, plus pay for that month's rent. Unfortunately, the pilot fell through and she was back on hard times a month later. When she again couldn't meet her rent payment, she sold her car and a few other belongings rather than borrow from her parents. She now slept on a mattress on the floor; the only contents in her fridge were milk and a half-empty carton of eggs, and she washed her clothes in the bathtub because she couldn't afford to go to the Laundromat every week.

Mina frowned at the memory and stuffed the paper back into her pocket. She had made up her mind: she was going in. Her bank balance was becoming anorexic and she was tired of having to deal with her landlady every damn day, promising her money that they both knew wasn't forthcoming.

The hotel—and Mina was using the term very loosely—had shabby, mismatched furniture in the lobby, lending to the place a kind of filth that didn't come from actual dirt. The gaudy furniture made the lobby look like a tired old whore, Mina decided. One that tried to disguise its weariness with life by overcompensating on the aesthetics. The dusty bouquet of fake sunflowers in the plastic vase atop the cracked surface of the melamine coffee table, the candy apple-red rayon curtains with the tassled trim that reminded Mina of a bordello, the couch upholstered in a bold, stylized floral print that was protected by a vinyl slipcover that had turned yellow with age and God-knows-what-else—it was all a failed attempt to distract the eye from the unpleasant surroundings both in the building and the community. ****

Mina timidly approached the bored-looking woman watching a soap opera on a small television perched on top of her rickety desk.

"Hi, I'm here to see Mr. Dunn," she said, reading her note just to be sure.

"Room 203," the lady said without taking her eyes off the screen.

"Thanks." The woman grunted and pointed at the stairs behind her. Mina didn't bother thanking her again; she looked like the type of person who didn't much care for social niceties. She took a calming breath and started up the stairs.

Once she reached the second floor, it didn't take her long to find her destination. She straightened her hair, arranged her shirt and squared her shoulders, readying herself for the audition. Then she knocked on the door.

---

Lita wiped her sweaty brow and surveyed the mess before her in the restaurant kitchen. A new busboy had carelessly placed a broom on the floor which her sous chef—laden down with a stock pot that contained the base for that night's special—didn't see and thus tripped over, sending about twelve litres of boiling-hot seafood stock raining down all over the floor and, unfortunately, on himself. Lita thanked her lucky stars that Pierre hadn't been seriously hurt. But now, she was out of a sous chef for at least one day, a soup for tonight, and a busboy.

She had fired that irresponsible idiot the second she caught him sneaking in a smoke break in the alley behind the Dumpster. Instead of being apologetic when he heard about Pierre's injury as a result of his negligence, he had shrugged indifferently and took another drag of his cigarette, which Lita yanked out of his mouth and stubbed out under the bottom of her shoe. His eyes narrowed dangerously but Lita met his glare with a challenging one of his own. Lita lacked nothing in the height department and was a devout follower of Tae-Bo and had the ass to prove it. Hell, Billy Blanks himself asked her to be in the infomercial after having been a member of his gym for the past seven years.

Still, even with her ass of steel, Lita couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when he walked away.

But now, as the lunch crowd started pouring in through the doors, she couldn't help but wonder if she had let the busboy get off too easily. There was soup everywhere; he should have at least been forced to clean his own mess up. She was having a hard time manoeuvring around the mess and the other busboys who had been picked, by default, to clean it.

Lunch orders were being called around her, each voice rising over the other to be heard. She and the other assistant chefs were busily shuffling around the kitchen, trying to fulfill them. Plate after plate of gorgeous (if she did say so herself) food made its way out of the kitchen to hungry patrons in the dining rooms, unaware of the crisis in the back. Finally, things looked like they were starting to ease up so Lita left her assistant chefs to it and made her way to the small room in the back of the restaurant that served as her office.

She wanted to call Nathan and see how his day was going. Her husband was away for the entire week so she and Nathan had been trying to make the most of it by spending as much time together as possible. Last night, she and Nathan had taken little Sammy to the park where they had a quiet picnic dinner by the lake. Tonight, she was going to cook them dinner in their apartment. She had already called her husband to tell him that she was going to spend another late evening at the restaurant updating the wine list and taking stock of the pantry inventory.

Lita was so deep in thought that she didn't even realize that someone was in her office until she heard his voice.

"Hello, wife. Did you miss me?"

"Alan," Lita breathed, shocked to find him in her office. Shit, he wasn't supposed to be back for a few more days. In her mind, she saw all of the plans she made with Nate and Sammy fall to pieces. "What are you doing here?" she asked tersely.

Alan set down the paperweight he had been idly playing with as he waited for his wife to appear. "What's the point, Lita?" He hated the defeat he detected in his own voice. It made him feel like a failure. "No amount of tests, treatments, exercise, even prayers can fight against an inoperable brain tumour.

"I'm dying." There. He said it.

Lita didn't know what to say, what he wanted her to say. She had arrived at this conclusion almost a year ago when he had been first diagnosed with Glioblastoma Multiforme, a deadly brain tumour that's highly resistant to treatment. Given that most patients with GBM only have a life expectancy of six months to a year, she guessed he should consider himself lucky that he's managed to live this long. They were both living on borrowed time.

Because she felt that he was finally ready to accept the inevitable, she nodded solemnly and said, "I know."

Alan winced at her simple, brutal honesty. Having only just accepted his fate, he wasn't prepared to hear his wife so readily agree with him. It would've been nice if she could have at least put up a token protest for his benefit, but he supposed her honesty was one of the traits he loved about her.

Loved. It was ironic, really, the situation that his illness put them in. They had been on the brink of divorce when his doctor had informed him that he was dying. The day they both learned the news, Alan clung onto Lita like a drowning man holding a life preserver. And just like a drowning man clinging onto the one thing that could save him in a raging sea, he clung onto Lita with a ferocity that put all thoughts of divorce or even separation out of her mind.

He wasn't ashamed to use guilt to keep Lita from leaving him. Till death do them part, right? Besides, he had the feeling that Lita didn't want to carry around the stigma of being the kind of wife that would deliberately leave her dying husband. He knew it was cruel to keep drawing her back when she clearly wanted to move on, but he couldn't stand the thought of dying alone. Unloved. He wanted to die with his wife by his side, no matter if it was all just a farce.

He cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the question he was about to ask. "Are you meeting Nathan tonight?" The fierce blush on Lita's face gave him his answer. He nodded. If he couldn't give her complete freedom, at least while he was still alive, he would give her glimpses of it. She would have to content herself with that, for it was all he had the courage to give her.

"I can cancel," she offered half-heartedly. Alan couldn't read her face; she had learned long ago to wall her emotions up from him to avoid disappointment.

Alan didn't relish the idea of going back to an empty apartment while his wife spent the night with her lover and his son. There were times he asked himself why he bothered trying to hold onto Lita when it was clear that she had already moved on. The answer was simple once he started being honest with himself: He wanted the adulterous bitch to suffer just as much as he has. Alan supposed that being openly cuckolded and having a tumour the size of a small grapefruit growing in his brain soured his disposition just a tad.

"No, that's all right," he said stoically, then clutched his head in both hands as if it were splitting in two. He waved Lita off when she took a step toward him. "I'm fine. Go have dinner, enjoy yourself.

"I'll just go back home, set the alarm clock to go off when I have to take my meds, then get some sleep." Alan started shuffling towards the door, making sure to maintain a pained expression on his face. He knew he had her when she started staring sadly at the phone.

That manipulative bastard. Lita was almost sure he was just faking it. But then again, there was no way he could fake a brain tumour…

"I'll meet you there later," she heard herself saying. "I just have to get through the lunch crowd." Nathan was just going to have to blow a gasket, she supposed, even though she felt very close to the gasket-blowing stage herself. She waited until he was gone, then picked up the phone to call Nathan.

"Nathan?" she asked meekly when she heard nothing but silence after she finished explaining to him why she couldn't have dinner with him and his son. "Are you still there?"

"Yes, I'm still here." Even though Lita couldn't see him, she knew he was clenching his teeth. A bad sign.

"I'm really sorry…"

Nathan let out a breath before replying. "No, I'm sorry. It's not your fault that Alan's too much of a coward to let you go, and it's not your fault he's manipulating you into staying with him. I guess Sammy and I will see you another time."

"It won't be long before, you know, Alan…" Lita felt terrible for saying it much less thinking it, but deep down, she was waiting on tenterhooks for Alan to die and set her free.

"Yeah, I know," Nathan replied softly. He sighed, his anger gone temporarily. "Listen, my lunch break's almost over and I have a meeting with a prospective client right after so I'm going to have to cut this a bit short."

"Tell Sammy I'm sorry I couldn't make it," Lita said. She still wasn't sure that he wasn't mad anymore. Oh well, unexpected cancellations were some of the hazards of committing adultery. "I'm going to San Francisco next week for a couple of days to check out some seafood suppliers for the restaurant. Want to come with me?"

"If I can find a sitter for Sammy, sure," he replied unenthusiastically. Lita wasn't very hopeful about their impromptu romantic weekend. "Try not to get down about Alan; he just wants to control you, as always."

They said goodbye, promising to call each other later, although it was a complete lie. There was no way she was going to call Nathan while Alan was home, and vice versa. Even though Alan was fully aware of their relationship, she and Nathan were going out of their way to keep it discreet. It was, after all, the least they could do for a dying man.

Lita put the receiver down and looked at it thoughtfully. No matter how much they tried to rationalize it, she was still a married woman who was flaunting her affair in her husband's face. Her affair with Nathan started just a couple of months before Alan was diagnosed, but she had been ready to leave him long before that. In fact, Alan wasn't even angry when he caught Nathan and Lita in bed together. Lita suspected the leggy blonde by his side dressed in nothing but her panties had something to do with it. After taking in the scene of his wife in his bed with another man, Alan politely excused himself and his own little date, and closed the bedroom door. He later told her that he and his model friend went to her place for the evening. Really, it was a very civilized way to end a marriage.

All that civility ended when Alan got the terrible news that he was dying. Of course, Lita expressed her shock and sympathy for him, and had even tried to find some of that old love she had for him to see him through the first few days. She did everything she could to make sure he was comfortable, including calling his mistress to let her know about his illness and leaving them alone when she arrived fifteen minutes later, breathless after running all ten blocks from her place to theirs.

She thought that since Alan was accepting the news so well, she could finally broach the topic of divorce and how soon they could have one. She honestly didn't know that doing so would trigger a reaction so negative from him that it almost ruptured a blood vessel in his brain. When the doctor asked her what they were doing when the situation occurred, she told him that she had been asking him for a divorce.

The doctor and attending nurse blasted her with twin looks of recrimination and soon, everyone on the floor knew she had driven her husband, who was already on the brink of death, even closer to the edge by asking for a divorce. Nurses looked away when she passed by, orderlies gossiped about her behind her back (or so they thought), and even the hospital chaplain tried to read her scripture from the Bible in an effort to turn her from her wicked ways.

Then Alan's family and friends began to pressure her into staying with him for "his sake". She was being bombarded on all sides day and night until she finally gave in and agreed to stay with him for another couple of months. Unfortunately, a couple of months stretched to six, then to eight, then twelve until she finally gave up counting how many months she had stayed in this relationship and began counting how many more months Alan had to live. The numbers were lower that way.

There were special places in hell reserved for people like her.

---

There were 30 more seconds before the clock on her desk turned to 12 noon and Amy still had so much left to do before she could go to lunch. She hurriedly flipped folders shut, arranged her pencils in a neat row parallel to the side of the ink blotter, gave her computer screen a good dusting with a soft cloth made specifically for that purpose.

Ten seconds…

What could she do in ten seconds? Amy decided to write herself a note, reminding her to pick up some eggs later.

_Amy, pick up…_

Seven, six, five…

_some eggs…_

Four, three, two…

_later…_

One…

She had just finished underlining the last word when the red digital numbers changed from 11:59 to 12:00. She loved running on clockwork precision; she just wished everyone else adopted her way of life. It would simplify her life so much.

_Has anyone ever told you you're completely anal?_ a familiar voice asked. Amy looked up warily and saw that Inner Bitch was back, this time sporting an outfit that would make a stripper blush. She eyed the riding crop Inner Bitch was tapping against her thigh. She was smut personified.

_Ignoring me now, are you?_ Inner Bitch sat on Amy's desk, her low-cut skirt riding up so that her hot pink satin panties were fully visible. Luckily, Inner Bitch was just a figment of Amy's over-utilized imagination.

_Oh, your imagination has nothing to do with me, hon,_ Inner Bitch informed her, wiggling her almost-naked ass on the desk to get into a better position. _I'm what happens when mothers don't breastfeed._

_Oh, shut up,_ Amy told her half-heartedly. Her mother and her lousy upbringing weren't up for discussion. The last time she talked to her mother was eight months ago when she was being honoured for all the work she did for cancer research. They only lived about half-an-hour away from each other. A thought struck her and she turned to Inner Bitch. _What should I call you? I mean, I can't keep calling you 'Inner Bitch' all the time, can I?_

Inner Bitch tilted her head, pondering the question. _You know, I've never thought about it,_ she replied. _That's why you're the brains of this operation, and I'm the one who always get laid._

Amy scowled at her and began gathering the files she was going to read during lunch. She was supposed to finish the minutes of last week's general managers' meeting by tomorrow. _As much as I dislike you, I hardly think I can call you 'Slut' to your face._

Inner Bitch rolled her eyes and flipped Amy the finger. _Well, well, look who has a backbone._ Inner Bitch jumped down from her perch, her stilettos sinking into the plush carpet. She walked around Amy's office, hitting her palm with the riding crop with each step.

_Since I'm the product of your many neuroses, I think my name should be derived from your name. But I hate your name,_ she added as an afterthought. Amy rolled her eyes. Ungrateful brat.

Inner Bitch suddenly snapped her fingers. _I've got it!_ She paused dramatically, allowing the drum-roll she conjured up to build. Amy looked at her expectantly, then tapped her watch pointedly. Inner Bitch cursed under her breath and sliced her hand across her neck, effectively killing the drum-roll. _Geez, I try to bring a little excitement to the little prude's boring life, and this is what I get in return? My mother always warned me not to get mixed up with the nutcases, but did I listen?_

Amy started walking out the door; why should she care if the bitch that only she could see ever told her her name? Inner Bitch, seeing that she was quickly losing her audience, raced to catch her. _Okay, okay! My name is Tammy,_ she said in a rush, as though she were embarrassed to tell Amy.

Amy looked at 'Tammy' up and down. _Isn't Tammy a little…tame for you? You strike me more as a Nikki, or Bambi. You know, something with an I instead of a Y, like a mediocre porn star or a stripper.._

_ Don't you find it ironic that the only normal conversations you ever have are with a figment of your imagination?_ Tammy whispered in her ear. _Careful, little Amy, or you might push away the only friend you have._

_ You are not my friend,_ Amy said heatedly, shutting her mind to the awful truth. She had no friends, no parents who really cared about her. She was just as alone now as an adult woman as she was when she was a little girl in need of attention from her two busy parents. Well, she was fucking sick of it.

_Well it's about fucking time,_ Tammy said proudly. _I was starting to get worried about you. To be honest, I thought you were one step away from going back to kissing that slag Molly's ass._

_Not bloody likely,_ Molly replied, her expression darkening at the thought of kowtowing to Molly.

_Yeah, yeah, I've heard this all before,_ Tammy said dryly, rolling her eyes. _How am I gonna know you're not just saying this to shut me up? _

"Because I've had enough," she said out loud.

"Had enough of what?" The authoritative voice halted her mental conversation to a halt, and Amy didn't have to turn around to know who interrupted it. But she did turn around and saw that Mr. Shields was in her office staring at her with a quizzical expression on his face. ****

Amy felt a sickening lurch in her stomach. She cast her eyes about, trying to come up with a suitable explanation for her outburst. Of course, Tammy was absolutely no help at all. The bitch was in the corner, laughing her fool head off.

"Uh, I've had enough of…of global warming," she said meekly, gesturing to the window where a brown haze was clearly visible hovering above the city. "Was there something I could help you with, sir?"

Unbeknownst to Mr. Shields, Tammy had sidled up to him and was now sucking on his earlobe. Amy's eyes widened; she had to fight the urge to warn her boss that his earlobe was going to be sporting a hickey.

"Um, I was going to ask you to do something for me but I can see that you're on your way out," he replied, keeping his distance.

"Well, I can have lunch later," she offered. Mr. Shields shook his head quickly.

"No, no. Just go…have lunch. I'll just ask Molly to do it."

Amy narrowed her eyes at the mention of Molly's name but didn't say anything. But that didn't stop Tammy from voicing her opinion. It was all Amy could do to think over Tammy's booing. "As you wish."

Amy pushed past her boss, Tammy's heckling ringing in her ears. Once again, frigging Molly got the best of her. Trust New Yorkers to stick together. They could just go back to New York for all she cared. She quickly walked away, leaving her boss standing in the middle of her office, staring at her in bewilderment. Screw him; she didn't give a shit what he thought of her.

She reached the elevator bay and stabbed blindly at the summon button. Almost instantly, a bell dinged and an express elevator opened up. Once inside, she stared at the buttons, contemplating whether to eat by herself in the kitchen, watching the sycophants in her department fawning all over Queen Molly, or eating by herself in the park. Without a second thought, she pressed the button for the ground level; she would be eating in the park again. The view was better there.

Darien watched Amy walking away in a huff, all because he decided to let her go for lunch instead of making her work through it. Oh well, let the weirdo be mad at him. In the months he'd been working here, he'd never been comfortable with Amy. He had a feeling she wasn't quite right in the head. There were times he'd walk by Amy and she didn't even notice him; he actually saw her lips moving silently as if she were talking to someone only she could see. He wasn't afraid to admit that Amy creeped him out.

Whatever. As long as she did her job, and did it well, he didn't care if she thought she was Joan of fucking Arc's reincarnation. He walked himself over to Molly's office and, seeing that it was empty, wrote her a note instructing her to find out when the financial reports from the now-defunct Global Advertising were going to be sent to him.

He checked his watch; perhaps it was time to make the rounds on the interns to see what they were up to. But why should he waste his time checking up on the four when only one person interested him enough to care?

"Hi Mr. Shields," Serena said pleasantly. She had just come back from lunch with Amara in the kitchen, and was just in the process of starting her computer back up again. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

Darien hid a grin; there were so many ways he could take that statement. All in due time. "Oh, I was just in the neighbourhood, trying to walk off that chocolate cake I had after lunch. My kids, especially Heather, keep nagging me to stop eating so much of it but I figure what they won't know won't hurt them."

Serena giggled. After her first day when he had driven her home, chatting for a few minutes after each lunch hour had become a daily routine for them. At first, she was a little nervous about receiving so much attention from Darien, especially after all his dire warnings, but after a while, Serena discovered she didn't give a damn what anyone else thought. It wasn't like Darien was giving her a promotion or anything; they were just having a normal conversation.

"And how can you be sure I won't rat you out to them?" she asked with mock severity.

Darien pretended to look hurt, which he ruined by grinning boyishly. "It's a girl thing, isn't it?"

"Mr. Shields, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that sexist comment coming from you," Serena said, her eyebrows raised sternly. "One would think you were being sexually discriminate and might take you to court."

Darien pretended to look annoyed at her as she preened in front of him, happy she got the last word. "Don't you have any work to do, Ms. Lombard?"

Serena sighed dramatically and shrugged. "Work, work, work. That's all I ever do around here. I might as well be running the place."

Darien threw his head back and laughed out loud. Around him, heads rose above cubicle walls to see what the ruckus was all about. When they saw that their boss was in their midst, they darted back down like scared gophers popping back into their burrows. "Now look what you made me do," he admonished, wagging a finger at her. "Now the drones know that I like to mingle with the mortals. Thanks for blowing my cover."

"Mr. Shields?" she said, motioning for him to come closer. When he did, she leaned closer to him, allowing him to sniff her floral perfume. "It wasn't that much of a cover," she whispered.

Darien shook his head; if he didn't watch himself, he'd end up staying here, talking to her all day. "Unlike some people, I actually have some work to do."

"See you later." She watched him walking away, feeling an odd little flutter in her stomach. She noticed Amara watching her as she was about to go back to work. "What?"

Amara didn't say anything; she just raised her eyebrow and shook her head. Curious, Serena left her cubicle and took a few steps across the aisle to Amara's. "What was that about?"

"What was what about?" Amara asked innocently as she booted up her computer and logged in. Outside, she was the picture of calm, but on the inside…she was a mess. She didn't stand a chance against Mr. Shields, who was making it clear that he had his eyes set on her naïve friend. Why didn't anyone else notice it but her?

Serena rolled her eyes and tapped her friend on the shoulder the get her attention. "You know what," she said. When Amara said nothing, Serena added, "The eyebrow-lift." She crossed her arms over her chest and demonstrated for Amara's benefit.

"Oh that," she replied as if she didn't already know what Serena was talking about.

"Yeah, that." Serena rested her hip against Amara's desk. "Explain."

Jeez, Serena just won't let up. Amara decided to tell her the truth in order to gain a little peace. Well, maybe just part of the truth. "Well, you know…you and Mr. Shields seem pretty chummy these days."

Serena shrugged dismissively, although she couldn't stop the blush from spreading across her cheeks. "What am I supposed to do, ignore him every time he passes by? He's a family friend."

"Looks to me like he's more than just a 'family friend'," Amara muttered under her breath. "Anyway, Serena, I've got to get back to work. Andrea-Bitchwants me to input all these figures into the database by the end of the day."

Serena nodded, commiserating with her friend. She gestured to the big pile of paperwork accumulating on her desk. "I think I've become Belinda's unofficial assistant; she hasn't interviewed for one in three weeks. She's dumping all her extra work on me, even though I have my own shit to do. You know what she had me do yesterday?"

Amara opened her mouth to reply that she didn't, but Serena continued on without stopping. "She had me call six different pizza places to ask if they made this Cajun seafood pizza she bought six months ago. Apparently, she wanted to impress the other managers at the meeting yesterday by buying them this gourmet pizza, but she couldn't remember where she bought it from."

"So did you end up finding it?"

"Not at first. I called five different gourmet pizza places before remembering that I had something similar like that once at Lita's, this restaurant my family always goes to. So, I called them and sure enough, they had the Cajun seafood pizza Belinda was looking for." ****

"So you must've been the hero of the meeting," Amara remarked while she was keying in numbers on a spreadsheet.

Serena snorted. "Hardly. That attention whore Belinda claimed all the glory and left me with an empty box to dispose of." She turned to look at her desk. That mountain of work wasn't getting any smaller. "Well, I better get back to work."

"Why don't you just ask Darien—" Amara said his name in a slightly mocking way that Serena failed to notice, "—to take care of the Belinda problem for you?"

Amara had wanted to get a laugh out of Serena, or at least a chuckle, but to her surprise, Serena tapped her chin thoughtfully, as if she were considering doing just that. She raised her eyebrows; this was the girl who thought double-dipping from your own bowl of salsa was a cardinal sin.

"Serena?" She had to know what was going through her friend's mind.

"You know what, I think you're onto something, Amara." Serena winked at her and walked away, leaving Amara to stare at her, open-mouthed. What did she have up her sleeve?

---

Darien sat behind his desk, thinking of the conversation he just had with Serena. He had always been on the outside looking in, even when he was in college and friends with Ken; for the first time since Lily's death, he didn't feel that way. Lily would sometimes jokingly call him anti-social, but he just thought of himself as introverted. When Lily died, he became not just introverted, but withdrawn. It was only when he realized that his daughters, especially Raye, still needed him that he slowly dug himself out of the hole Lily's death had caused.

He began to date, not an easy thing to do for a guy who married his college sweetheart. And yes, he had slept with some women—he wasn't a monk, after all—but he had never felt the same connection with them that he felt with Lily. She had been dead for years but he still felt her loss as if the accident had happened only yesterday. Thank God Heather was okay; she had been buckled up in her car seat and only suffered minor scratches when the car hit the concrete utility pole head-on.

Lily's death had destroyed him; he was still feeling the effects of it. Part of the reason he uprooted his entire family to New York was to get as far away as he possibly could from the place of her death. He stayed away from California all this time because he thought the old adage was true: Out of sight, out of mind. But it wasn't the case. He only had to look at his children to see Lily's eyes, her smile, hear her laughter as they joked with each other about things only little girls could understand. But then one day, he got that letter from Ken, and he knew he was ready to move forward with his life. He still had that letter, and would sometimes take it out late at night when he felt lonely.

"Mr. Shields," his secretary said over the intercom, "phone call for you. It's Ken Lombard."

"Thanks Ivy. Put him through." Well, well, speak of the devil. He heard a click on the line, letting him know that the call had been connected. "Ken?"

"Hey Darien!" Ken's voice was so loud, Darien thought his eardrum had burst. "What's up?"

"Nothing but your volume level," he joked, lowering the volume on his phone. "How's everything going?"

"Oh, same old, same old. Irene's fully absorbed in her studies; every week she's got another writing assignment. She's so busy, I hardly ever see her anymore. Aren't you glad we're done with all that stuff?"

"And those all-nighters we pulled every time we had an assignment due or had an exam the next day?" Darien asked, remembering all the times he stumbled into an exam bleary-eyed and groggy.

"Boy, do I ever. Which is why I admire Irene for wanting to go back to that after all these years," Ken said, unable to keep the pride out of his voice. He cleared his throat. "So, how's work?"

Darien smiled knowingly. He knew there was another reason behind Ken's phone call. "Work's good," he said. He remained silent, waiting for the next move even though he knew Ken wanted him to elaborate on the exact meaning of 'good'.

"Just come right out and ask, Ken," he said.

"Fine, smart-ass. How's my little girl doing?" Ken laughed at himself. "No matter how old they are, we still think of them as little girls, huh?"

"Raye's operating under the foolish notion that she's allowed to date. The last boy I allowed to take my daughter to the movies ended up taking her to the make-out spot kids their age go because their parents aren't more diligent. Good thing I was following them so he couldn't get very far with my baby." He chuckled, remembering how mad Raye was when she spotted her dad peering at them through the foggy windows. He glared silently at her until she got out of the car on her own, and drove her back home. Two months later, he learned that same boy got another girl pregnant and he skipped town to avoid her parents' wrath. When he thought the same thing almost happened to his daughter… The pencil in his hand broke in two.

"So, really, how's Serena doing?" Ken prodded. "You're not working her too hard, are you? I expect my daughter to come home for Thanksgiving, not work through it."

Darien laughed. "Despite what my children tell you, I'm not a slave driver. We're keeping Serena pretty busy around here, but nothing she can't handle. I guess she gets her work ethic from her mother."

"We're talking about a woman who hasn't worked for more than 20 years," Ken said, then immediately felt guilty about saying it. "Look, forget what I just said."

"What'd you say?" Ken chuckled. "So how's Mina doing?"

"Mina is…doing okay, whatever that means." Ken sighed heavily into the phone. "I don't know Darien. I know we're not supposed to have favourites, but Mina was my special little girl. The first time I looked into her eyes, I was hooked. I had big dreams for her. Then she dropped out of school and now she's starring in movies that make me feel ashamed to know that I once got a kick out of watching similar movies when I was younger. I'm afraid she's going to learn her lesson the hard way."

"You're just going to have to let her learn it herself," Darien counselled, even though he knew he'd feel the same frustration Ken was feeling if any of his daughters decided to take Mina's route. "I know it's hard to stand back and watch her make mistake after mistake, but she's a grown woman and has a mind of her own."

Thank God Raye was only 17. He still had one more year to control her before she was legally turned loose upon the world. God help them all when that time came.

"Irene is having such a hard time dealing with Mina about this," Ken told him. "The last time Mina came home, she and Irene had a huge fight because she had to borrow money to pay for the rent. I know I told her that it was the last time we would bail her out, but I know if it happens again, I'd have my chequebook out in a heartbeat."

Ken remembered that day well. He had yelled at Mina for letting her credit record suffer for the sake of her 'art', then left the room after giving her the money to keep her off the streets, at least for one more month. After he had cooled off in the kitchen, he decided to go back into the living room where she and Irene were to work things out with his daughter.

That was when he overheard their conversation. Irene accused Mina of being a failure in life; Mina accused her mother of the same thing. Then a shocking thing happened: Mina accused Irene of not loving her as much as she loved Serena, and Irene couldn't find it in herself—or her heart—to deny it. Ken felt crushed for his little girl; he knew a parent's love was the greatest gift a parent could give to his or her child. To know that his wife could deny their daughter of it made him see Irene in a totally different light. What depressed him the most was his daughter's quiet acceptance of it, as if she wasn't surprised by her mother's admission.

When Mina left, he confronted Irene about it, the first serious fight they had in years. How could she make their daughter think she didn't love her? Irene retorted that ever since Mina decided to become an actress, he himself hadn't been prone to showering her with signs of affection. That realization made him realize that he was just as guilty of the crime he had just been accusing his wife of. It made him ashamed to know that he was ostracizing their daughter just because he didn't approve of her lifestyle.

They never spoke of it again. The subject of Mina had become an almost taboo topic in their household, as if by not speaking about Mina, they were absolving themselves of their actions towards her. But he didn't forgive himself and he certainly hadn't forgotten the crushed look in Mina's eyes when she left their house. He tried calling her to arrange a lunch meeting with her just like the old days, but she never returned his calls.

After the way he and his wife had been treating her, he didn't blame her. He realized that Darien was still on the other line, waiting expectantly for him to elaborate but he just didn't feel like rehashing just how bad a parent he really was. He cleared his throat. "Listen, Dare, I have to go. I'm on a deadline and I have to go cover this event across town…"

"Hey, no problem," Darien said, understanding his friend's need to keep things to himself. "I'll talk to you later, okay? Give my love to Irene."

"I will," Ken promised and hung up.

Darien hung up the phone and thought back to the first time he met Mina. She seemed like such a self-assured young lady, ready to take on Hollywood by storm. One night, when he was alone in the house, curiosity got the better of him and he rented one of Mina's obscure movies from the video store. The movie was crap but Mina had an on-screen presence that was undeniable. She became her role and delivered her lines with perfection. Too bad she had to be topless for her to do that.

Her agent must not realize the golden goose he had in Mina. Either he was really lazy and didn't work hard enough to find her better roles, or he didn't have enough pull with producers to get her any auditions. Mina had talent underneath her sex-bomb looks; it was time someone noticed. Darien thought about the pain his best friend was going through, watching his firstborn put herself through such degradation just to be in a movie, then thought about how all this must be affecting Serena. It had to be tough, watching her sister make so many mistakes and be used by her parents as an example of what to strive for.

So, with the image of Serena in his brain, he flipped through his Rolodex until he found the name and number of the person who could most likely help Mina. Without hesitation, he dialled the number.

"Cutting Edge Talent Agency, how may I help you?"

"I'd like to speak with Nathan, please," he said. "Tell him it's Darien calling."

"Just a moment, please." He was put on hold for a few seconds before he was transferred to Nathan's extension.

"Darien, what can I do for you? You need another model for a commercial, or something?" Nathan asked. "But model recruiting isn't really your department, now is it?"

"You're right, it's not," Darien agreed. "Listen, I have a proposition for you…"

---

She knew something was wrong the minute she stepped into the room and saw Mr. Dunn wearing nothing but a bathrobe. She should've listened to her instincts screaming for her to leave this place, but practicality kicked in and reminded her about her overdue rent payment. She swallowed her doubts and stayed.

She hoped she wouldn't live to regret it.

Mina cleared her throat nervously. "Mr. Dunn? Should I begin?" She didn't like the way he was leering at her, but then again, she was used to that in this business.

Mr. Dunn, if that was his real name, leaned back on the bed, resting his weight on his elbows. His robe fell open just a bit more, revealing a thick mat of dark hair covering his chest. Mina inwardly shuddered.

She took a deep breath, felt her identity move to the back of her consciousness to allow the character to take over. This was the part of acting she loved best: the ability to become someone else while retaining her own sense of self. She acted to escape, to experience things that she might never—

"Excuse me, but can you take your clothes off now?"

Mina blinked; did he just ask her to take her clothes off? Forward little horn-dog, wasn't he? Irritated, she raised her eyebrow scornfully and said, "No."

Mr. Dunn looked confused. "Well okay, but I have to get back to work in forty-five minutes so I suggest we hurry this thing up."

"Um, okay…" If he was in such a hurry to get back to his studio, why'd he agree to meet her here, anyway? And how can she be expected to give a decent audition if she was being told to hurry through it? Honestly, this man had been doing and saying the weirdest things ever since she had walked through that door. Mina tried to regain her focus but it was hard with all the pounding footsteps outside in the hallway. It sounded as if there was a football game in the hallway and the players were headed their way. "What the hell?"

Then the door was kicked open. Mina screamed in terror as four police officers burst through the doorway, their guns drawn. Mr. Dunn scrambled off the bed, desperately trying to close his robe as two cops tackled him to the floor, handcuffing his hands behind his back.

"You have the right to remain silent!" one of them shouted to the now blubbering Mr. Dunn. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." Mr. Dunn kicked and bucked, trying to dislodge his captors as they Mirandized him.

Mina stood in the background as the cops rushed around the room, toppling things over in search for what, she didn't know. She wanted no part of this. Maybe if she slowly inched her way out the door, they wouldn't even notice she was gone.

She took a few steps towards the fallen door, never taking her eyes off the policemen. Mr. Dunn was now crying out for his wife, begging her to forgive him. She looked at him in pity; whatever it was he did, she doubted his wife would forgive him very easily.

"And just where do you think you're going?" Mina jumped, bumping into the cop that had addressed her. He was a few inches taller than her, with sandy brown hair and emerald green eyes that regarded her with amused patience.

"I'm leaving," she replied simply, hoping he wouldn't be a jackass about it and just let her go. "Excuse me."

"I don't think so, sweet cakes," he said, turning her around and cuffing her hands behind her back. "You're under arrest."

"For what?" she exploded. She struggled against him but he only held her tighter. To her horror, her eyes started stinging with panicked tears. What would her parents think when they found out? How much more would her mother hate her when she heard about this?

"For prostitution," he said matter-of-factly.

For a moment, Mina was too stunned to speak. She barely heard him reading her rights, didn't know she nodded to acknowledge them. She allowed him to lead her to the hallway and down the back stairs, her mind unable to process what was happening to her. Prostitution? This had to be some kind of nightmare and any minute now, she was going to wake up on her mattress in the middle of her bedroom floor. ****

She closed her eyes, willing herself to wake up. But she didn't. When she opened her eyes again, she was standing in front of a police car. The officer gently nudged her towards it, urging her to accept a fate that wasn't hers to take.

Two feet away from the car, Mina dug in her heels and refused to move. She was not a prostitute, never have been, never will be. She shoved backwards, taking the officer by surprise. She took off when he fell against a dumpster, running quickly despite having her hands restricted behind her back.

She didn't stop to think about the consequences of her actions. What was worst, getting arrested for a crime she didn't commit, or passively letting them take her to jail when she knew she wasn't what they accused her of. If they wanted to arrest her, they were going to have to get her; she wasn't going to make it easy for them. So she ran.

But she didn't get very far. The officer managed to recover from his fumble and caught up to her. Mina was wild-eyed from her narrow escape; her captor was grim-faced and annoyed. He didn't appreciate being slammed against a dumpster, getting his newly cleaned sport jacket doused with unidentifiable garbage juices. He considered himself a pretty strong guy; not many men his size could get the better of him in the boxing ring or on the streets.

So how did this slim girl with the big blue eyes and wheat-blonde hair catch him off-guard? He was pissed with himself; he thought he was above falling for the vulnerable pretty-faced ones.

"Now you can add resisting arrest to your charges," he said gruffly. Even now he was having a hard time keeping a tight rein on her. She fought like cornered tiger: ferociously, blindly, and with wild abandon. She didn't care that her feet struck his shins so hard, he would have to ice them later that night, or that the top of her head butted up against his chin, almost causing his head to snap back. Any harder and she could've broken his neck. Despite the situation, he couldn't help but roll his eyes, remembering how he had wanted to join the police force because he wanted to see some 'action'. Well, he got that and then some.

"Let me go! Let me go!" she shrieked over and over. Mina knew the cop was shouting at her but she couldn't hear anything above the sound of her own heartbeat. She could feel it beating faster and faster, the adrenaline pumping through her veins. She transformed into a warrior of old, fighting for her lift with her bare hands, with everything she had.

"Holy shit," the cop grunted under his breath. She wasn't going down without a fight and he kind of respected her for that. When he realized he wasn't getting any closer to the car, he slung her bodily over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and dumped her in the backseat of the car. He was surprised to actually feel beads of sweat pouring down his face, and his breathing was heavy.

Mina watched him hatefully as he wiped his forehead. She somehow managed to tear a couple of buttons off his shirt in the struggle and he winced with pain every time he moved. Good. She hoped he'd feel each hit she landed on him every night for the next ten years. "I know you couldn't care less, but I am not a prostitute."

The cop snorted and wiped a drop of blood from his bottom lip. "That's what they all say, honey."

Mina glared at him. "I'm not your honey." She pointedly turned her head in the other direction to avoid having to look at him.

He didn't know why, but having her ignore him pissed him off tremendously. He wanted to forcibly turn her around and see those sparks shooting out of her eyes. "Out of curiosity," he said, his friendly tone finally getting her to turn around, "how much would it take for you to become my honey?"

That did it; Mina's eyes filled with angry tears that she fought hard to prevent from escaping. "Fuck you," she said quietly and rested her head against the seat, all the fight going out of her. Mina turned her head away from the cop, not wanting him to see her crying softly.

Now he felt like a jackass. What was it about this girl that made him want to provoke her? He hated making girls cry, even hardened prostitutes. But this girl looked nothing like some of the streetwalkers he'd encountered in the five years he'd been in Vice. She was a study of contradictions: fresh-faced but weary-looking, sexy and innocent, strong yet vulnerable. He turned his head when he heard his partner call out his name.

"What?" His partner, Billy, was prodding the crying Mr. Dunn ahead of him.

"Let's take the lovebirds back to the precinct. Get in there," Billy growled, not hearing Mina's scared whimper. As an afterthought, he added, "watch your head."

Billy slammed the door after him and turned to his partner. He saw the signs of struggle and fatigue all over his face. "Christ, Drew, she did that to you?"

Detective Andrew Mulligan, Drew to his friends and family, rubbed the back of his aching neck sheepishly. "Kind of," he admitted.

Billy whistled low and shook his head. He tapped his knuckles against the window Mina was leaning her head on. She regarded him warily. "Don't get too comfortable in there," he told her, angry on behalf of his partner. "Soon you'll be in a cell with your colleagues."

Mina's lower lip wobbled and she turned away from both of them. Billy was about to taunt her some more, but Andrew stopped him. "Let's just go," he said quietly. He didn't want to make her cry again.

They pulled out of the parking lot, leaving the other unmarked police-issue Oldsmobile behind as their owners stayed in the hotel room gathering evidence. Twenty minutes later, they were at the station. Mina felt hands pulling her along, fingerprinting her, taking her mug shot—she didn't notice any of it. She felt strangely detached from her body, as if she was just an observant to her final humiliation instead of an unwilling participant.

She was thrust into a holding cell until she could be interrogated. The door was shut behind her, the metallic clang ringing like a death knell in her ears. So this is what jail was like. Funny, it didn't look like the jail set she was once on, playing a character that had been wrongfully accused of killing her cheating husband. Where was the fake landscape behind the window? The PVC bars fitted into the window that were spray-painted to look like metal? The loyal friend waiting outside the jail, ready to bust her out with a stick of dynamite? At least they removed the damn handcuffs before they shoved her in this hellhole.

Mina closed her eyes and tried to blend into the walls. She knew her cellmates were staring at her, probably judging her, but she didn't care. She just wanted to go home. Questions were whirling around in her mind. Who were they? What had they done to land in place like this? Did they know what _she_ was in here for?

She opened her eyes; she couldn't put off the inevitable. She counted five people in the holding cell, six including her. To her surprise, she knew three of the women in there. They all shared the same agent, Vinny Marquez. "What are you guys doing here?"

One of them, a girl named Katie, scoffed. "Same thing you're doing here, Mina. Someone must've ratted us out."

Mina shook her head in confusion. "What're you talking about? Ratted us out for what?"

She must've said the wrong thing because from then on, the girls shut her out. They formed a pack on the other side of the cell, ignoring her pleas for them to tell her what was going on. Finally, she gave up; they wouldn't give. She sat down on the hard bench and hugged her knees to her chest, protecting herself from everyone in the room. She knew that by law, she was allowed one phone call, but to whom? Her parents? If her mother didn't already hate her for borrowing money from them, she would now that she had been arrested for prostitution. No, she wanted to be in a better state of mind before she bit the bullet and called them. This was all just a misunderstanding, she assured herself. She needed to convince herself of that first before she tried to convince her parents.

She supposed she could've called a lawyer but she couldn't even afford to buy groceries. How was she supposed to pay for a lawyer? She could get a public defender but her pride stopped her from asking for one. She had always prided herself on the fact that she was financially independent; the fact that she had to borrow money from her parents had been a minor setback and just a one-time thing. Besides, borrowing money from her parents was one thing, taking a handout from strangers was another. She was not a charity case.

She still couldn't get over it. What the hell gave the police the idea that she prostituted herself? Her empty bank account? Her apartment almost completely devoid of any furniture? She had done many stupid things since dropping out of college but selling her body wasn't one of them. If she had stooped low enough to prostitute herself, she certainly wouldn't have to beg her parents for rent money. Please. With a body like hers, who'd need to pay rent for a run-down studio apartment with peeling linoleum and windows that barely opened? She'd own the whole damn house.

A metal door slid open and heavy footsteps walked slowly down the hallway, coming to a stop in front of their cell. "Mina Lombard?" It was Officer Mulligan.

She raised her head slowly and regarded him with a blank stare. "Yes?" Her voice was hoarse from screaming so much.

He said nothing as he took out a key ring and inserted one of the many keys into the lock. "You're free to go."

Mina stared dumbly at him. "I'm…free to go?" she asked slowly, not wanting there to be any misunderstandings between them. "Just like that?"

He nodded. She rose from her seat and, with as much dignity as she could muster, walked across the room, ignoring the heated stares of her cellmates and out the door. She followed him down the dimly lit hallway and into one of the interrogation rooms. He shut the door behind her and motioned for her to take a seat.

She sat down, keeping her back rigid and her hands primly resting on her lap, waiting for him to say something. She was the picture of calm but inside, she was a bundle of nerves. If he didn't say something soon, she was going to snap.

"We've been investigating a talent agency for months that one of our informants told us was just a front for a prostitution ring," he began. He opened up a file folder he had with him and slid a few pictures across the table to her. They were surveillance photos of Vinny out and about town. In some pictures, he was with a client, in others, he was with one of Mina's colleagues. Mina just stared at the pictures, unable to tear her eyes away from a black and white image of her and Vinny, dining at a café near his office. She remembered that day: they were discussing what she should wear for her audition later that day. She thought she was going to be sick.

"The pimp, posing as an agent, recruited wannabe-actresses into his agency, then set up fake auditions with clients who were really just johns that didn't want the average streetwalker. They wanted their whores to come from good backgrounds, be in excellent health, and be model beautiful. In short, they wanted to be guaranteed of their purchase before they paid up, something you don't get by cruising the streets."

Mina just sat there trying to take it all in. "Are you telling me that Vinny isn't a real agent? That he's a pimp?" she asked incredulously. "But then how did I manage to land some roles?"

"Well, not everyone in the agency was a prostitute," Andrew explained. "Vinny needed a few real actresses to make his business look legit." He looked sadly at her; she wasn't going to like what she was going to hear next.

"We've got Vinny in custody and he told us some interesting facts about how he ran his business. The real prostitutes posed as actresses auditioning for a producer or director—a john. The actresses, meanwhile, were pressured into performing—" he cleared his throat, "—sexual favours in exchange for landing minor roles in some two-bit operation. Because the actress was unaware of being pimped off by Vinny, all the money went to him. You were one of these girls, Mina."

It took a while for everything to sink in. So the charges _were_ true; she _was_ a prostitute, only she was too dumb to know it! God, she felt like such a fool. No wonder her career wasn't advancing as quickly as she had hoped. No wonder all the movie roles she seemed to be landing had a definite sexual vibe to them. Her agent was a pimp!

"Where is he?" she asked, her voice dangerously low. She looked out the window into the main precinct, searching for Vinny's balding head amidst all the officers in blue uniforms. Finally, she spotted him sitting in a metal chair, waiting to be fingerprinted.

Before he could stop her, Mina charged out of her seat on a mission to kill a certain agent/pimp for passing her around Hollywood like a pack of cigarettes. The door slammed open with such a force, the doorknob smashed through the drywall behind it and got stuck there. Andrew paused to look at the damage, his eyes widening at the sight of the doorknob wedged cleanly through the wall.

"Vinny!" Mina shouted, running for him. Around her, everything stopped as officers and criminals alike turned to look at the pissed-off blonde shooting fire from her steel-blue eyes. "You fucking bastard!"

The man known as Vinny yelped and tried to hide behind the burly officer who was taking his prints but the man knew the story and stepped out of the way, leaving Vinny to fend for himself. He froze, knowing that there was nothing he could do to stop the enraged Mina from launching herself at him, tearing his throat right out of his neck with her teeth.

Mina blocked out everything else but Vinny's face so she didn't even see the five or so cops that tried to stop her or tackle her to the ground, all in an effort to spare Vinny from her wrath. When she was just four feet away from him, she felt herself being picked up from behind, two arms banding around her stomach to prevent her from getting any further.

But nothing was going to stop her from planting her foot on Vinny's face or one of his other body parts. She used the momentum to jump, pushing her upper body back as she extended both legs forward. Her feet connected solidly with Vinny's chest, and she had the extreme satisfaction of seeing his pain just before she landed on top of the officer who tried to restrain her.

Vinny lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, vomiting the remains of his lunch mixed with a little blood from his split lip. As soon as Mina recovered from her rough landing, she pushed herself off the cop—she later found out it was Andrew—and lunged for Vinny's throat. Before she could wrap her hands around his neck, however, she was tackled to the floor.

Before she could shake herself free, two more cops joined the pile-up. Their weight plus the weight of the person that tackled her made it hard for her to breathe. The side of her face was pressed against the floor, her arms and legs pinned down by all the bodies on top of her. She was slowly starting lose air.

Voices. Mina could hear voices but they sounded like they were underwater: garbled, disembodied, alien. Her breathing slowed and her vision started to dim.

"Get the fuck off, you guys!" Andrew shouted. He was the one who had tackled her, and now he lay on top of her. "She can't breathe!"

Vinny was screaming his head off, threatening to sue everyone from Mina to the department for assaulting him. "I want my lawyer! I know my rights!"

Andrew turned from trying to revive Mina and threw Vinny an annoyed glare. "Would you shut the fuck up?" he growled.

"I was assaulted!" Vinny shouted, pointing an accusing finger at Mina who was just starting to come to. "You're all my witnesses. You saw her attack me!"

"Actually, I didn't see a thing," Andrew replied, feigning an innocent expression. He turned to the two guys that helped him pin Mina down. "How 'bout you guys?"

"Nope, sorry."

"My head was turned." One by one, all the officers in the room offered their excuses. Mina was starting to come around and could hear every vile word Vinny was saying about her.

"Why are you guys defending this bitch?" he demanded. "Don't think she's so innocent; she'll suck cock for free—"

Andrew didn't let him finish his sentence. He picked Vinny up by the collar and slammed him against the wall. "Keep talking, asshole. Let's see how far you can shove your foot in that big mouth of yours before I decide to help you out."

Vinny's eyes widened as Andrew tightened his hold. He turned his head to look at the other cops behind Andrew. "Police brutality! I want my lawyer!"

Pissed, Andrew shoved Vinny towards Billy, who caught him with ease. "Take this bastard out of my sight," he barked at his partner. Before he could be taken away, however, Andrew pulled Vinny towards him by his shirtfront and said through gritted teeth, "This is LA—we invented police brutality."

"Word of advice when the judge sends your sorry ass to prison," Billy said as he cuffed Vinny's hands again. "Don't bend over."

Vinny's screams, which Billy just ignored good-naturedly, could be heard all the way to the male prisoner holding cell. When he was gone, everyone went back to work as if nothing had happened. Mina was, by this time, leaning against the wall, trying to regain enough strength to make as graceful and dignified an exit as she could.

_Don't think she's so innocent; she'll suck cock for free…_ ****

Mina swallowed a sob. As much as she hated to admit it, Vinny was right. That made her worst than a prostitute. Prostitutes sold themselves for money; she sold herself for even less than that. She had willingly degraded herself with each audition, not thinking about how her actions reflected upon her as a person.

_She'll suck cock for free…_

"Are you okay?" Mina turned towards the voice; it was Officer Mulligan. He was watching her with something that looked like concern in his eyes.

"I told you I wasn't a hooker," she said without any real conviction. She was tired, humiliated and lonely. Today had been the scariest day of her life and she didn't know who to call for help. She didn't want to embarrass her parents by calling them from a police precinct. She didn't want her sister to know about this chapter of her life—it would be too humiliating. She didn't have many friends, certainly not close ones. She was alone, as she had been for the majority of her life.

"Am I free to go now?" she asked dully. She couldn't look him in the eye; he knew too much about her.

He nodded. "Is there someone you want to call?"

Mina shook her head and rubbed her hands over her arms. "I just want to go home, forget this day ever happened. Forget I ever knew Vinny."

"Do you want me to call you a cab?" he offered. He would drive her home but he was still on duty. This was the best he could do.

"No thanks." She couldn't afford one. "I have to go…"

"Okay." He watched her walk away, slowly, like a salmon fighting to go upstream.

She stopped at the front desk to collect her belongings: a purse containing her wallet, address book, a cosmetics bag; the gold necklace her parents had given her for her 16th birthday and the small diamond earrings she had treated herself with after landing a recurring role in a primetime medical drama. The show had been cancelled two months after she got the job. Too bad no one told her until after she had spent a small fortune on the earrings.

Mina gathered up her things, now tainted after having spent time with the belongings of real criminals, and left without looking back. Her brush with the law had taken her about an hour more away from the hotel, which was already about an hour's bus ride away from her apartment. The neighbourhood was a bad one—graffiti adorning every available surface, sirens screaming in the distance, distrust written over everyone's faces. Mina didn't want to stay here one minute longer.

_She'll suck cock for free._

---

Well, that's the end of chapter four, version 1238975340834. Seriously, I don't think I've ever had so many versions and revisions of one chapter of any story, ever. Mad thanks to my editor, Ladysolo, who read through the two final versions, helped me pick which one was best for this story, and edit it even though she was busy with working two jobs, packing, cleaning her room, and keeping me sane. As much as I hated to get rid of the Jerry Springer scene, I'm glad you gently prodded me to do it. I don't know what I was smoking when I wrote that scene. And yes, Mirandized is a "real" word in the sense that it's the verb cops (and authors) use when they have to read someone their Miranda rights. You've got eyes like an eagle and the patience of a statue. Thanks for doing such a great job.

Some of my readers who also happen to be members of Aria's Ink may already know that I helped co-found a group called Writing to Improve Standards of Excellence, or W.I.S.E. for short. This group represents authors and readers who are concerned with the direction the Sailor Moon fandom (and all other fandoms) are taking, and are trying to improve fanfiction by giving honest critiques, which the authors will then use to help improve their writing. It's a win-win situation for all: honest reviewsàbetter writingàbetter stories. Please help us turn the fandom around by leaving reviews for this, and any other fics you read. Just in case you don't know what to say in your reviews, here are some questions I have that would help me improve the next chapters, and my writing overall:

What was your emotional response to this story thus far?

Are there any particular phrases, images or scenes that stand out and linger?

Did any aspect of the writing confuse you? Are there places where you needed more information?

I'd love to hear what you guys have to say so please review. Thanks for reading this story and stay tuned for the next chapter!

---

Crystal Rose, member of Writing to Improve Standards of Excellence

WISE up! Read a fic, Review a fic, Revive fanfiction standards!


	6. Chapter Five

_This is a continuation of Chapter Four.  I suggest you read that first if you don't remember what happened there before you try this one. _

_Happy reading, everyone!  Sorry for the long delay.  _

* * *

Amy watched an old woman feeding the ducks bits of her sandwich by the pond. She looked at the homemade chicken salad sandwich in her hand. If she fed it to the ducks, would they know they were cannibalizing their chicken brethren? A part of her wanted to try it, just to have the satisfaction of seeing ducks hungrily devouring chicken, blissfully unaware that they were committing an act against nature.

On second thought, why should she sacrifice her lunch to feed some good-for-nothing ducks that did nothing all day but swim lazily around in the pond, shitting all over everything in sight? If that old biddy wanted to feed those disease-ridden animals, that was her problem. Let her go hungry. As if to prove her point, Amy took a huge bite out of her sandwich, taste exploding in her mouth.

Those ducks didn't know what they were missing.

_See what happens when I leave you alone for two minutes? You mentally taunt ducks with your sandwich._

_Go away and leave me to my sandwich._ It was hard to ignore Tammy when she was sitting on the picnic table, her legs spread wide open so that Amy could see the lacy scrap of cloth that was passing as Tammy's panties.

_Had a good enough look yet?_

Amy flushed. _Well, it's kinda hard not to notice with you just showing it to everyone._

Amused, Tammy sat up and moved closer to Amy's ear. _Honey, you're the only one that can see me, so stop looking up my skirt. I'm not that kind of girl.._

Amy found that hard to believe. Still, she flipped open the document she had to read as a way to ignore Tammy, who was flashing her goods to everyone, albeit invisibly. She concentrated on the words, not seeing that the woman feeding the ducks had gone, only to be replaced by a man who had no patience for ducks. He sat down on the bench the woman abandoned and stared at the calm water, shooing an occasional duck that had happened to wander too close to him, looking for food.

_You're no fun,_ Tammy said, disappearing into thin air in search of the next party or orgy to attend.

The fucking ducks were pissing him off, always in search of free food, quacking their heads off when no one gave them any. It was really too bad he couldn't shoot these damn creatures; a couple hundred or so wouldn't make that much of a difference to the ecosystem, would it?

"Fuck off," he muttered to a duck foolish enough to actually peck at his shoe. He kicked it lightly, just enough to send it rolling a few feet away from him, but not enough to do any permanent damage. He didn't need the damn PETA nazis on his ass too. After that Lita chick fired him for leaving his broom on the floor, causing that clumsy oaf to trip all over it, Greg was in no mood to play with some ducks looking for a handout.

That bitch Lita didn't know how close she came to having his fist blow a hole through her face. It was only his desire to exact his revenge on Darien Shields that prevented him from punching that bitch's face in. After all, how was he supposed to make Shields pay from behind bars?

The building that housed MediaWorks was directly across the street from the park. Greg turned to look at it, resenting the fact that somewhere up there, Shields was able to look down at him from the comfort of his executive office. He knew the key to his revenge rested on his ability to get inside that building. But how?

"Shit," a female voice said as the wind blew, carrying with it the papers that she had been quietly reading on the picnic table. Greg watched in amusement as she rushed to gather them up before they got soiled.

"Would you mind lending me a hand instead of just gawking at me like an idiot?" Greg raised his eyebrows, but got up anyway. He didn't expect such a mousy-looking thing to have such an attitude. He made a show of walking over to the one closest to him and bent down to retrieve it, almost smearing it in the duck shit it happened to lie beside.

He gathered the papers slowly, preferring to watch her race around trying to rescue her windswept papers than doing it himself. By the time all the pages had been accounted for, he had collected three, while she, twelve.

"Thanks for your help," she said dryly. Greg couldn't help but notice the thinly-veiled sarcasm but chose to ignore it. This town was full of ungrateful females always bitching at him to do more work. He was about to place the papers on her outstretched hand when he noticed something interesting about them.

They all bore the MediaWorks letterhead. What was more, he saw her name on the top: Amy MillerSuddenly, this plain-looking spinster with the bitchy attitude seemed more and more appealing. She could be his ticket into MediaWorks if only he knew what made her tick.

"Hello? My papers?" Greg snapped out of his scheming to look at the woman impatiently waiting for him to return her property. Come to think of it, she wouldn't look so bad if she just did something with her hair instead of just leaving it to fall down around her face, hiding it from view. Perhaps if she got contacts or something….

"What're you staring at?" No one had ever stared at her the way this guy did, and it unnerved her.

_Ooh, I think someone likes you,_ Tammy said, wrapping her arms around the guy's torso, licking his ear. One of her hands moved down to his crotch and cupped it.

Amy looked away. "Stop it," she muttered.

"Stop what?" he asked, watching her as she turned beet red.

"Um, stop looking at me like that," she said, covering up her slip. She grabbed the papers from his hand and stuffed them into the folder.

"So, you work at MediaWorks?" Greg asked casually. He could tell from the way she was looking at him that she was wondering how he knew that. "The letterhead on those papers," he said, gesturing to them.

Amy sighed with relief, thankful she didn't find herself face-to-face with a stalker.

_Oh come on, admit it,_ Tammy said, eyeing the man lustfully. _You wanted him to be your stalker._

Amy ignored her, focusing instead on the man in front of her. "Yeah, I work there," she said slowly, her voice full of distrust. She had heard too often on the news about serial killers targeting women that were too trusting to ever be cautious. With her rotten luck, he would probably clock her over the head the second she turned her back on him.

She wasn't going to give him a chance to do anything to her. She was going to go back to work, not because she was afraid of him, but because her lunch hour was almost done. But she had to admit, as potential serial killers go, he was pretty cute.

_I knew it,_ Tammy said in a singsong voice. _You like him. You think he's sexy. You want to jump his bones and ride him like a cowboy on a bucking bronco._

Amy scoffed, rejecting the idea of a man like him wanting a woman like her, in bed of all places. As if.

Greg smiled to himself, watching her internal struggle. All this chick needed was a bit more work, a bit of ego-stroking, and she would be his for the taking. In his mind he saw the bitchy Ms. Miller morphing into a key, one that fit into the lock of MediaWorks' door. He extended his hand to her, a friendly expression on his face. "Hi, I'm Greg…Saunders. I just arrived in town the other week from Oklahoma."

Amy ignored his hand, just as he knew she would. "Welcome to LA," she murmured, gathering her things to avoid looking at him. Tammy threw her head back and groaned at the sky.

_Honey, we need to work on your people skills._

Greg smiled easily, even though he wanted to drag her by the hair all the way to Shields' office and demand an audience with the big man himself. He knew she was nervous; she must've thought hewas a rapist. As if he was attracted to the shy, unassuming type.

"Well, bye," she mumbled as she walked past him, clutching her purse to her body as if he was going to snatch it off her shoulder.

"I'll see you around," he called after her. She paused in mid-step and waved her hand behind her head, not bothering to look at him.

"I doubt it," she replied loudly, obviously hoping to be overheard by the other park patrons. Greg smirked; she didn't know it yet, but they were going to run into each other often—he'd make sure of it.

Greg followed her from a distance, making sure to stay out of sight. For such a tiny thing like her, she sure walked fast. Greg was having a hell of a time keeping up with her. He watched her cross the busy street, running between the cars with a daring that impressed even him.

She made it across safely and ran for the revolving doors, pushing a man in a business suit out of the way and almost caused him to spill his Grande Latte all over himself. Even from across the street, Greg could hear the obscenities the man yelled at her. She didn't even hear them in her haste to go back to work.

Greg found a park bench close-by and sat down. He had a long wait ahead of him until Amy Miller got off work but he was determined to be there when she left. He was going to keep her in his sights from now until he had Darien Shields on his knees, begging him for mercy.

---

Serena glanced at her watch, waiting impatiently for it to turn five o'clock. She knew she only had forty-five minutes left until the end of the day, but she was itching to leave. She had this feeling that she was needed somewhere, and she was needed now. Or it could just be that she wanted to go home, eat a nice dinner and take a hot bath.

She flipped through the stack of timesheets each MediaWorks employee had to submit every two weeks and sorted them by department, and then alphabetically. Belinda had "asked" her to input the data—the hours worked and lieu and sick days taken—into the database for payroll to process. She felt herself mentally wilting under the enormity of the task. There were almost 300 employees working in the four floors that MediaWorks occupied in the building and Serena had to go through each of their timesheets.

She drummed her fingers on top of the stack. She was tired of being Belinda's glorified gofer. She didn't maintain her 4.0 average for four straight years just so she could do the work that anyone with a rudimentary understanding of numbers could do. When she first got the news that she won a coveted MediaWorks internship last summer, she had envisioned herself working alongside some of the people who created the most innovative advertising in the world, not giving her right hand a workout on the numeric keypad in her less-than-glamorous cubicle. She dreamed of creating images and concepts, not fiddling around with numbers all day. Serena wanted to exercise her creativity in an environment that fostered it, not to waste away in a nine by nine-foot cubicle with nothing but the sound of computer keys tapping in synch to keep her awake.

Serena picked up her coffee mug and took a sip, only to find her coffee had long since grown cold. She grimaced, discreetly spitting the coffee back into her mug. She didn't need any more caffeine today, anyway. Come to think of it, why should she stop at today? She'd give up caffeine for good. As of this moment, she, Serena Lombard, was going to give up caffeine in all its forms. She didn't want to be a slave to it any longer. Today was the start of her new caffeine-free lifestyle. Serena puffed out her chest a bit, extremely proud of herself; not many people had the courage and strength to give up an addiction cold turkey.

She won't look at her empty coffee mug and crave for a refill. She was above that sort of thing now. She wasn't about to drop everything just to rush to the kitchen to top off her mug. She had too many important things—like Belinda's data entry—to do. Not that she was in any sort of rush to do it. Her body was a temple—it was time she started treating it like one.

Twenty seconds passed before she reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a jumbo-sized chocolate bar. Anything as good as chocolate shouldn't count as caffeine, she rationalized. She hastily unwrapped it before her conscience kicked in, and stuffed it into her mouth, savouring the chocolate, wafer, and hazelnut cream flavours explode in her mouth. Lord, that was almost orgasmic.

She was just coming off her chocolate high when the phone on her desk started ringing. Serena quickly brushed off the wafer crumbs from the corners of her mouth, cleared her throat. "Serena Lombard, how may I help you?" God, she never tired of hearing herself say that. She felt so grown-up, she wanted to squeal.

"Serena?" The voice was so shaky, it took Serena a moment to realize who it was.

"Mina?" Chocolate bar all but forgotten, Serena sat up straight and gripped the receiver tightly in her hand. "What's wrong?"

"I need you to come get me," Mina begged tearfully. "Please."

"Well, sure, but I still have a half hour to go—"

"No! Please, Serena, I need you to pick me up." Serena had never heard Mina sound like this. She was always so independent; she would never be caught dead begging anyone, even her own sister.

"What's going on, Mina?" Serena demanded. "You're scaring me."

When Mina didn't reply, Serena insisted. "Tell me."

She heard Mina sigh wearily. The more Mina put off telling her what the problem was, the more worried she got. Serena was about to demand that Mina tell her again when she heard her sister say, "I was arrested today."

"You were what?" Serena exploded, then lowered her voice when her curious co-workers looked over their cubicle walls to find out what was going on. She waved them away, annoyed that she was surrounded by such nosy people. "What happened?"

So Mina told her every sordid detail. By the end of her story, Serena was seeing red. "That bastard!" She let loose a bunch of expletives, letting Mina know exactly what she thought of Vinny Marquez.

"So where are you now?" she asked when her tirade was over. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know!" Mina wailed. She had been trying to hold back the tears while she was telling Serena what happened but now she was sobbing in earnest. "I think I took the wrong bus because when I got off, I was in a totally different part of town. By the time I realized that I was lost, the bus had already gone and I didn't have enough money for bus fare.

"So then I thought I would walk until I came to a part of town I recognized," she continued. "Big mistake. Huge."

"What happened?"

"Some punk kid on a skateboard zipped by me and took off with my purse." She sneered. "Joke's on him: there's nothing in my wallet except my driver's license. And that's expired."

Serena closed her eyes, unable to believe her sister's rotten luck. "Okay, where should I pick you up?" She quickly logged onto the Internet and found a site that gave driving directions. Mina gave her the intersection closest to her location, and Serena typed in the information, including her own location. In seconds, she was printing out the directions.

Serena looked at her watch. She would have to get permission from Darien before she could go get Mina, and then it would have to be by cab because she didn't have her car with her today. "Okay, Mina, just sit tight. I have to tell Mr. Shields there's been a family emergency and I have to go."

"No, don't do that!" Mina cried, practically yelling into Serena's ear. "Then he'll go to Mom and Dad and ask them what happened."

"So you mean you don't want them to know? But how can you keep it from them?" Serena scowled into the phone. "Mina, I won't lie to them for you."

"I'm not asking you to lie for me," Mina replied desperately. "I'm just asking you not to tell them anything. Besides, it's not like they could make the charges against me stick, so I can't possibly know why they'd be mad at me."

"Then why not tell them the truth?" Serena didn't get why Mina wanted all this secrecy.

Mina sighed into the phone. Her sister just didn't get it; she had never been the one to disappoint their parents. "Look, please just let me tell them on my own time, okay? Please?"

They were just wasting time so Serena gave in. "Fine, if that's what you want. They'll find out, you know."

"I know," Mina sighed. She could just picture her parents watching the evening news and their reaction to hearing about Vinny's arrest. At least she still had a few hours' reprieve to get herself together before the inquisition began. It wouldn't matter to her mother that Mina was the injured party; to her mom, it was just another chapter in Mina's book of many mistakes. "Please just hurry," she said and hung up.

Serena shut her computer off for the day, tidied her desk and gathered up her things. The first stop she made was at Amara's cubicle to tell her that she wouldn't need a ride home that day.

"What's going on?" Amara asked. She heard Serena's reaction to the phone call she received just a few minutes ago, and wasn't ashamed to admit that she had been straining her ears to listen to her end of the conversation.

"Mina called and asked me to pick her up. It's an emergency," she added. "I'll be home kinda late so don't worry about me."

Amara watched her dash off to Mr. Shields' office. Mina. She should've known. With Mina, it was always an "emergency" or a "crisis". The little drama queen was fond of getting herself into trouble and then having her sister bail her out. She just hoped that whatever she got herself into this time wouldn't drag Serena down with her.

Part of her hoped that this was the last time Serena would help her sister out, but she knew that Serena would never have the heart to just let her sister sink on her own. Amara thought that was wrong, but what could she do? She was just the friend. And sometimes, Amara thought that being just the friend truly sucked.

"Ivy, I really need to speak to Mr. Shields," Serena said.

Darien's secretary shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't allow that, Ms. Lombard. Mr. Shields is extremely busy and asked me to hold all calls and meetings for him today."

"Please, it won't take very long." Serena was beginning to get desperate. The clock was ticking and Mina was in a very bad neighbourhood alone with no money and no idea how to get home.

But Darien's secretary was resolute. She shook her head no and turned to her computer, obviously dismissing her.

Serena was pissed. Why that bitch…Before she knew what she was doing, Serena rushed past the secretary and turned the knob on Darien's door. She was already inside when Ivy knew what happened. Serena slammed the door in her face, and locked it. She turned around to face Darien, who was staring at her in shock.

The intercom buzzed. It was Darien's secretary, determined to prevent Serena from taking another step into his inner sanctum. "Mr. Shields, I'm very sorry about this," she began in a very severe tone that made it clear she didn't approve of Serena's actions. "I clearly told Ms. Lombard that you were busy and—"

"Thank you, Ivy, but I'm sure Ms. Lombard has a very good reason for barging in here, which she will tell me as soon as she's had a seat," he said, never taking his eyes off Serena, who turned red with embarrassment.

Darien took one look at Serena's pale face and told her to sit down. "What's wrong?"

"Can I leave early today? I'll make it up tomorrow," she added when she saw him hesitate.

"Why do you want to leave early? I need a good reason to grant you some time off, especially this late in the day."

"Oh, it is," Serena assured him, deliberately not elaborating.

"And that is…" Darien raised his eyebrow in a way that said he wasn't going to tolerate lame excuses.

Serena swallowed. He wasn't going to let her leave until he knew the whole story. "It's a family emergency," she said, stalling for time.

"It's not your dad, is it?" he asked, rising out of his seat. Serena immediately shook her head.

"No, it's not," she reassured him. He took a deep breath, visibly relaxing.

"Serena, I need to tell HR something," he told her.

Serena fidgeted with her hands. Time was running out. By the time she got permission to leave it would be five and she would be allowed to legitimately go for the day. "It's Mina," she blurted out. "I have to go pick her up."

Darien folded his hands on top of his desk. "What happened?"

Serena told him the story in under two minutes, rushing through it because of the time. She really needed to get out of there; Mina was out there somewhere, waiting for her in a dingy phone booth.

"You have to promise not to tell my parents," she pleaded. "Mina wants to tell them herself, in her own way."

Which meant Mina wasn't going to come clean to Ken and Irene anytime soon. Still, Darien promised her he wouldn't say anything. It wasn't his secret to tell, anyway. "All right, you can go. Just make sure you make up the time tomorrow evening."

"I will, Darien. Thank you so much," she said gratefully. She hurried to the door, threw him a relieved smile and left. It was going to be dark soon, and Mina was all alone. If she got mugged in broad daylight, she hated to think what might happen when the sun went down.

Darien drummed his fingers on the desk surface, thinking about Mina's situation. It seemed that he called Nathan Cutter just in time, although he would have to do a lot of talking to get Nathan to take her in now. Still, he was sure Nathan would see the talent he saw in Mina.

Serena had mentioned the terrible neighbourhood Mina found herself stranded in. That neighbourhood was a very well-publicized one; too bad it was usually for gang violence and drug trafficking.

He waited a few more seconds, then packed up his things and turned off his computer. "Ivy, I've decided to go home a little early this evening. I'll see you in the morning," he said, brushing past his secretary so quickly, he missed her open-mouthed expression. Ever since he assumed his title, he had been working until well past five every night.

He was gone before she could ask him if she could leave too.

Down on the street corner, Serena was having a hard time hailing a cab. Apparently, she wasn't the only with idea of leaving work a bit early.

"Fuck," she muttered under her breath when the fifth cab sped by without stopping. The man in the backseat actually turned his head and smirked at her. She flipped him off as the cab passed her. Somewhere, someone honked his car horn, and continued honking until everyone on the sidewalk and a few drivers in their cars turned to look at the car in annoyance.

"Serena!" The driver honked his horn again. "Serena!"

Serena turned her head slowly, unsure if the driver was calling her or some other Serena. The driver started honking more excitedly when he noticed that she heard his cries. She followed the sound all the way to a familiar-looking SUV a few cars away from her.

"Darien?" she called. Another beep answered her. Around her, heads turned as people figured out that she was the cause behind the ruckus. She smiled at them sheepishly and ran toward the waiting vehicle.

"Get in," Darien said through the open passenger side window, unlocking the door for her. Serena didn't know why, but she felt an excited thrill as she slid into the passenger seat and closed the door after her.

"So, where to?" Darien asked. He pulled the SUV over until she dug out the directions she had downloaded and handed them to him. He studied the directions, and committed most of it to memory. "I'm going to need you to help me navigate."

"Darien, I don't want to be rude, but what are you doing here?" Serena asked.

"I can't let the two of you wander around that part of town alone. I don't care if you were going to take a cab," he interjected before she could interrupt. "It's not safe."

Serena thought about it. Truth be told, she wasn't looking forward to the long commute to that neighbourhood, so Darien's offer was very welcome. She just didn't know how Mina would react to seeing him in the driver's seat. "I don't know, Darien. Mina…"

"Will have to suck it up because she has no choice if she doesn't want me to rat her out to your parents," Darien finished. He wove in and out of traffic, not letting a little thing like the speed limit get in his way.

Well, when he put it that way…Serena sighed and let him have his way. She was actually glad he was with her; she needed all the moral support she could get. Mina was bound to be on the defensive when they picked her up, and she was the first—and most convenient—person to attack.

As they got farther away from the business district, box houses and low-rise apartment buildings replaced the steel-and-glass skyscrapers; supped-up cars spliced from stolen luxury cars roamed the streets, chrome rims glinting in the sinking sun like diamonds against black velvet, and graffiti covered every exterior wall like colourful tapestry. Sirens, barking dogs, rap music, screams—all these sounds engulfed the SUV like a twenty-foot wave barrelling down a tiny sailboat in the middle of the ocean. Serena's fingers slowly inched their way to the power door lock to make sure it was engaged. Thankfully they were.

"Turn right here," she told Darien, keeping her eyes peeled for a lone phone booth in front of a 24-hour liquor store. Darien's headlights made a wide sweep as the vehicle executed the turn, and landed on a dingy phone booth with busted windows. Serena could clearly see Mina cowering in the booth, and immediately her heart went out to her. "There she is!"

In the phone booth, Mina's eyes widened when she saw a pair of headlights heading her way. Oh God, she hoped those gang-bangers weren't back for another round. Just a while ago, she had talked her way out of a potentially dangerous situation when a truck filled with young men no older than she was pulled up next to her little booth and tried to pick her up. Bravado and a good vocabulary filled with swear words helped convince them that her boyfriend—who had just spent eight years in prison for throwing battery acid on a rival gang member and leaving him for dead—wouldn't take to "his bitch" taking rides from strangers.

She didn't know if she had it in her to repeat her performance. Mina was trembling by the time the big vehicle slowed to a stop beside her and a door slammed shut. They must be back to finish her off. She wasn't aware of the tears pouring down her cheeks or the chattering of her teeth. At least she was leaving behind a beautiful corpse.

"Mina! Mina!" She snapped out of it when she felt someone shaking her. Her eyes fluttered open—and came to rest on her sister's face.

"Oh thank God!" she cried, flinging her arms around her neck. "I thought you'd never get here!"

Serena briefly returned the hug then pulled Mina along until they reached the SUV. The last thing she wanted to happen was to be caught in a gang war while they were exchanging a hug in a busted phone booth. Thank goodness Mina was still a bit shell-shocked; she had yet to notice that Darien was sitting behind the wheel.

"Come on, Mina," she said as she assisted her sister in the backseat and climbed in after her. She smiled sheepishly as Darien, who was observing them through the rear-view mirror, and he nodded in understanding. Serena needed her comforting presence just as much as she needed to comfort Serena.

It wasn't until they were two blocks away that Mina noticed she wasn't sitting in the back of a cab. The rich smelling leather upholstery was the big tip-off. "Serena," she hissed out of the corner of her mouth. "What's _he_ doing here?"

"Giving us a ride home," Serena whispered back. "Now be quiet and be grateful."

"But…dad and mom," she said.

Serena fixed her a pointed look. "After your misadventures in _Compton_ of all places, facing mom and dad should be a cakewalk."

Mina sank into the soft leather, deflated. Her sister had a point, but she was still dreading the inevitable confrontation between them. How could she not? By far, being falsely arrested for prostitution was the biggest offence she'd ever committed, even though she wasn't actually guilty of it. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

"Do you want to stay at my place?" Serena asked her softly. Mina shook her head wordlessly. "Are you sure?" She nodded. "You want me to stay at your place?" Again, she shook her head.

"I just want to be alone," Mina said without opening her eyes. A couple of tears managed to slip past her defences but Serena brushed them away before she could even lift her hand. "Thanks."

"No problem." She felt Serena squeeze her hand and instantly felt relieved. Even though there was a one-sided sibling rivalry between them, Serena had always been a source of comfort to her. How could she not love the one person who never judged her, despite the many foolish things she did? She took a deep breath and let sleep overtake her.

Serena was carefully watching her sister. She looked too thin, too tired. Was she eating enough? Getting enough rest? She couldn't imagine the hardships Mina went through to follow her dream. She worked herself to the bone just to gain their parents' approval, mainly their mother.

Serena shook her head and turned away from Mina. Sometimes she really hated their mom for pushing Mina away, even though she was the obvious favourite as a result. It was her firm belief that her mother drove Mina to do the crazy things she did out of a perverse need to get her attention. It was a cry for help but their mother had always been slightly deaf when it came to her oldest daughter.

"Serena?" Darien's voice broke through her thoughts. He had been watching her in the rear-view mirror and had seen the play of emotions on her face. He wondered what she was thinking about.

"Yeah?" Serena tore herself away from her sister's side and sat at the edge of her seat to be closer to Darien.

"Where are we going?" Up to now, he was just concentrating on getting the hell out of Compton and back to more familiar—and less hostile—grounds. He felt like a moving target in his luxury SUV; even the streets of New York weren't as harsh as these. The faster they got out of here, the more relaxed he'd feel.

Serena slid herself closer to him until she was practically perched over his shoulder. She didn't want to wake Mina up by talking too loudly; God knows she deserved some rest after the hellish day she had. When she saw a familiar street ahead, she said softly in his ear, "Turn right at the next intersection."

Despite her good directions, Darien was having a difficult time concentrating on the road. At one point, he had to ask her to repeat what she said because her breath was tickling his ear, driving him to distraction. He furrowed his brow and focused as if his very life depended on it, but no matter what he did, it didn't erase the fact that Serena was too close for comfort.

When she placed her hand on his left shoulder and left it there, Darien mentally groaned. Here he was, stuck in a confined space with a woman half his age, extremely turned on, and she just happened to be his best friend's daughter. Karma was going to owe him big for this.

"Mina's street is coming up soon," Serena said twenty minutes later, unaware of the effect she was having on Darien. She leaned closer in order to point to a little side street on the right. "Turn there."

Darien obediently turned on his blinker and executed the turn. Serena could feel heat rising from Darien's shoulder, warming her hand. It was all she could do to navigate Darien through the winding LA streets. Darien had broad shoulders, she observed, squeezing one lightly. Strong, too.

What was she doing to him? Was she trying to run them off the road, because if she kept doing that to his shoulder, that was what was going to happen. Darien almost heaved a sigh of relief when Serena finally announced that they had reached their destination.

"Mina?" Serena reluctantly moved away from behind Darien's seat to gently wake her sister up. "We're here."

Mina pretended to blink sleepily, keeping her eyes unfocused. Serena thought she was sleeping all this time, but the fact was, she was too wound up to sleep. So she observed her sister through half-shut eyes and what she saw surprised her enough to take her mind off her present situation.

Serena, directly behind the driver's seat, was sitting perched on the edge of her seat, her face near Darien's, her hand on his shoulder. From where she was sitting, it looked like Darien didn't mind the intrusion on his personal space one little bit. In fact, by the way the flush was rising up his neck, he was enjoying it a bit too much.

Now wasn't this an interesting situation. Mina recalled the lust she felt when Darien and his family came over to her parents' house for dinner, and the things she said to Serena, but she didn't mean them. There were just some things she wouldn't do, and sleeping with her father's best friend was one of them.

Not that she thought Saint Serena would do that. There was no way; Serena didn't have a disobedient bone in her body.

Mina at once felt chagrined. Serena went out of her way and beyond the call of duty as her sister to come to her aid, and all she could do was jump to conclusions and judge her. And so what if there was something going between the two of them? Serena was an adult; she was more than capable of making her own decisions. Mina decided to support her sister whatever happened—or didn't—between her and Darien.

"Mina, wake up." A blurry image of Serena's concerned face came into view when Mina slowly opened her eyes. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine," she said, surprised at how hoarse her voice was. She took her seatbelt off and gave her sister's arm a squeeze. Serena sensed that Mina had something to say to Darien so she slid out of the car first to give her some privacy.

Mina smiled softly at her sister's back. Serena must've been a mind reader in a former life. She turned to Darien and said, "Thank you for watching out for Serena. I know you wouldn't have driven all the way out to Compton if it wasn't for her so I just wanted to tell you that it really means a lot to me."

Darien's eyes softened and he felt pity for the girl. "I would've gone farther than just Compton for one of Ken's girls, just as I know he would for me."

Mina didn't believe that one bit, nor did she believe her father would reciprocate his gesture in kind. Her father was the type of man who believed that asking for outside help to solve family problems was not only a complete waste of time, but also a criticism on his title as man of the house. But she didn't want to damage her father's image in Darien's eyes so she nodded. "Thanks again, Mr. Shields."

She placed her hand on the door handle but his voice stopped her. "Whatever happened to just Darien?"

Mina turned her head towards him and smiled sadly. "When you've hit rock bottom like I have, Mr. Shields, manners are all you have left. Thanks again for all you've done today. I won't forget it."

Before Darien could say anything, she opened the door and stepped out of the car. She took a deep breath, enjoying the smoggy air filling her lungs. Hey, it may be polluted but at least she was free to breathe it in.

"Mina, would you like me to spend the night?" Serena asked, knowing she would be turned down. As expected, Mina shook her head.

"I'll be fine," Mina assured her. She did not want Serena to see her barren apartment and have her go running to mommy and daddy on a mission to save her, as if she were a charity case. "Really."

"Mina, we have to talk about this. We have to—"

"I know, I know. But not tonight, okay? I need to be alone while I think things through." Mina pulled her sister into a hug to smother her other concerns. "Don't worry about me, okay? This is my issue and I don't need you to fight my battles for me."

"But mom and dad—"

"I will handle them." Mina wished she felt as confident of that as she sounded. "I'll be fine, you'll see."

Serena's eyes were clouded with concern but she finally nodded. "I want you to call me day or night if you need to talk. Promise me."

"I promise," Mina said, knowing she wouldn't take her sister up on her offer. In many ways, she was exactly like her father: her problems were her own. She turned to leave but Serena held her arm back.

"I love you." Mina blushed, pleased yet embarrassed that Serena said what she had always taken for granted. Among other things, Mina envied Serena's ability to express her feelings so openly. She could never do that; there was too much at risk. Which was why she answered "Me too" and walked away.

Serena waited until Mina had unlocked the lobby entrance, until she disappeared up the stairwell in the walk-up apartment building, before she opened the passenger door and slid into the seat beside Darien.

"Are you okay?" Darien asked gently. Serena looked at him, worry etched in her face. She was trying to hold herself together, he realized, and she was on the verge of snapping. He reached out a hand to gently push a strand of hair behind her ear. Without a word, Serena broke out into a sob and threw her arms around him, and he found himself holding her close, rocking her like a child in need of comfort. Only she wasn't a little girl, no matter what Ken believed; she was a young woman with the weight of the world on her slim shoulders.

He didn't know how long they stayed there on the curb in front of Mina's apartment building and he didn't care. Serena cried out her frustration at always having to play the peacekeeper between her parents and sister: of being the more adult of the two, despite being born later, at Mina for always pushing her away, at her parents for putting her in the middle, at her own inability to just stay out of it.

Darien could feel her slowly gathering herself together, wiping her tears on his shoulder. He didn't mind. In fact, when she started to pull away, mumbling embarrassed apologies, he stroked the back of her hair, weaving his fingers in her golden hair. She didn't pull away after that, settling even closer into his side.

She smelled like flowers and bright spring rain. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes.

She didn't know what had come over her. She didn't even know she was going to start crying until he touched her, until she looked in his eyes and saw the empathy and understanding there. She should be embarrassed—she practically soaked his shoulder with her tears—but she wasn't. She had a feeling she never needed to feel embarrassed in front of Darien Shields ever again.

He smelled like clean soap and spice. She closed her eyes and didn't let go.

Three stories above, Mina watched the parked SUV from her tiny window. The exterior grime made it hard for her to see what they were doing in there, but she had a fertile imagination and she wasn't afraid to use it. Scenario after scenario raced through her mind, but the one that was most vivid was the one she was most afraid to see.

So she turned away from the window, away from her sister and the man that was way too old for her. She had too many problems of her own; she didn't need to take on anybody else's.

Mina surveyed her empty apartment, empty except for a milk crate she salvaged from an alley behind a convenience store, an old television with rabbit ears she inherited from her elderly neighbour, a floor cushion she used in place of a couch. Oh, and she mustn't forget about the mattress on the floor in the middle of her bedroom. Her kitchen was just as bad. If the apartment didn't come with the appliances, she wouldn't have anything in there. There were no plants in pretty glazed pottery, no pictures on the wall, no silly knick-knacks scattered around—she couldn't afford them. Why should she blow her money on stupid crap like that when there were more important things to pay for, like her phone? Without it, how was her agent supposed to contact her?

Oh yeah….

Her stomach growled angrily. It had been hours since she last ate that hotdog so she rummaged around the cupboards, hoping that they had been restocked with food since she last checked. No such luck; they were as empty as her bank account. Again, her abysmal financial situation reminded her of those social assistance papers she had picked up at the welfare office a long time ago. Mina shook her head. No, she was _not_ going on welfare. She was _not_ going to take handouts from strangers when she wouldn't even take them from her own family. She pushed those depressing thoughts out of her mind. Maybe someday, when she was really desperate, she'd bite the bullet and go on welfare. But not right now.

She opened another door and to her surprise, saw a box of macaroni and cheese in the far recesses of the cavernous cupboard. She was in luck—she was going to eat well tonight and possibly even have some left over for breakfast tomorrow. Tomorrow, she was going to think about her future. Tonight, she was going to eat like a queen.

Her stomach rumbled again, impatient to digest its meal of carbs and processed cheese that she really didn't need and processed cheese. Normally she hated the stuff but hunger didn't discriminate between good food and bad.

When the food was ready, she divided it between two bowls: one for tonight, and one for tomorrow. She made a mental grocery list in her head, just in case she managed to scrounge up some money this week. If she didn't, she'd just have to buy the cheapest essentials: canned goods loaded with sodium and preservatives and boxed stuff loaded with simulated flavours and colours. Yummy.

She took her bowl and walked over to the window overlooking the street and peeked outside. Good, they were gone. Mina didn't care what they did together as long as they were far away from her. She didn't need to be caught in the crossfire when the shit went down.

---

Darien drove to Serena's apartment building while she slept, sometimes taking shuddering breaths as if she couldn't draw enough air into her lungs. When she fell asleep on his shoulder after another bout of tears, her body twisted in an awkward way to accommodate the bulky centre console separating them, Darien gently shifted her back into her own seat and strapped her in. She was in such a deep sleep she never even noticed.

He flipped open his cell phone and hit the speed dial to call his home. Trista answered the phone in just two rings. "Shields residence."

"Trista, it's me." Darien paused while he negotiated a left turn before speaking again. "I just wanted to know how the girls were doing."

"Oh, hello Mr. Shields," Trista answered a little breathlessly. Darien assumed he had caught her in the middle of doing something strenuous like mopping the floor or doing the laundry, and didn't think any more of it. "The girls are doing just fine except…"

"Except?" Darien's brow furrowed and he unconsciously pressed his foot harder down on the accelerator. His speed climbed slowly and he gripped the steering wheel just a little tighter. "What's wrong?"

"Well, Heather came home with a stomach ache but she won't let me give her any medicine so I tucked her in bed with a hot water bottle. I think she's waiting for you to come home and make her feel better."

Darien let out a sigh of relief. Tummy aches he could handle. Broken limbs he couldn't. Broken hearts…well, he didn't even want to go there. "Tell her I'll be home soon," he said, pulling up at Serena's apartment building. "How's Raye?"

"Raye's fine," Trista replied breezily. The girl was too hardheaded for her own good, which was why she didn't concern herself as much with her. "She's in her room, doing her homework."

"Have you guys eaten dinner yet?" Beside him, Serena was just starting to wake up.

"Yes, we have, although Heather's stomach ache prevented her from eating too much. I've kept your dinner warm in the oven for you."

"Thanks, Trista. I'm just wrapping things up but I'll be home in about half an hour. I'll see you then." Darien ended the call and turned to Serena who was watching him with sleepy eyes.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, noticing the frown on his face. Darien let out a breath and rolled his shoulders.

"Oh, it's nothing. Trista just told me that Heather's stomach hurts. It's probably just indigestion or something like that; she'll be fine." Still, he couldn't keep the concern out of his voice or his facial expression.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Serena replied. She casually placed her hand on his forearm and ignored the frisson of heat she felt there. "I'm sure she'll be fine, Darien. She's a tough kid."

"You have no idea," Darien said proudly.

"So, who's Trista?" Serena asked, deliberately keeping her voice light. She was just making conversation, nothing more.

"She's our housekeeper," Darien replied, shifting in his seat so that he was facing Serena.

"Oh," she replied, turning herself to face him as well. Dismissing the subject of Trista from her mind—after all, she _was_ just a housekeeper—she smiled and said, "Thank you so much for coming to our rescue today."

For reasons she couldn't explain, she moved closer to him until she was once again in his arms. "I could never thank you enough," she whispered, her lips just barely brushing his ear. Then she turned her head and kissed his cheek, leaving her lips on his skin a little longer than necessary.

Darien banded his arms around her, pulling her closer against his body. Her breasts crushed against him but somehow he didn't think she minded. Growing bolder, he moved his hand up and down the small of her back, his fingers grazing the waistband of her skirt. "Anytime," he murmured.

Because she couldn't help herself, she gave him another kiss on the cheek, this time just a little closer to the corner of his mouth. Then she pulled away, blushing because she couldn't believe how brazen she had become, because it felt so natural. "I'd better go so you can see how Heather's doing. I'll see you tomorrow, Darien."

She felt his eyes on her as she walked up to the entrance and unlocked the door. Serena forced herself not to look over her shoulder to acknowledge him, but she couldn't stop her hips from swaying as she practically sashayed up the stairs.

Darien was watching her, all right. How could he not after she practically sat on his lap and planted her lips on his cheek not once, but twice? Or maybe he was reading too much into what could've been just a simple, chaste thank-you kiss.

As he had the first time he gave her a ride home, he waited until he saw the light turn on in the window two stories above him. The curtains fluttered in the breeze, revealing a slim blonde woman in her room, preparing to undress. As if she knew he was down there watching, Serena reached up and pulled down a roller shade.

Darien grinned. Although he could still see her silhouette through the shade, he couldn't see anything else so he decided to go home and see his daughters.

True to his word, he was home in less than thirty minutes. The house was still when he entered it, only running into Trista when she heard him setting down his keys in the crystal bowl on the entrance table. Wordlessly, she took his briefcase and set it down by the stairs where he could easily pick it up on his way to his room.

"How's Heather?" he asked, taking little notice of her as she moved silently about, picking up after him. As a result, he missed the way her eyes roved over his body, admiring the physique that he worked to maintain by going to the gym three or four times a week. He didn't even realize how sexy he was, Trista realized, and that made him much more appealing than her worthless ex-husband, who knew just how handsome he was. His huge ego, along with his endless work as a Hollywood agent, stifled her until she felt that the only way she could regain her sense of identity was to leave him…and her son.

As always, she felt a pang of guilt every time she thought of her son, not because she regretted abandoning him, but because she couldn't live up to her standards of being a good mother. PTA meetings and baking cookies just didn't appeal to her so she left. Sammy was much better off with his father, anyway.

"I'm going to check on the girls before I eat dinner," Darien said, already climbing the stairs. "We'll be fine for the rest of the evening. Good night, Trista."

"Goodnight Mr. Shields," she replied but he had already disappeared down the hallway to Raye's room. In her arms, she held his jacket. She lifted it to her nose and sniffed it, pretending that the empty arms were wrapped around her willing body.

Cinnamon spice and everything nice. She held it for a second longer before she hung it up in the closet.

Upstairs, Darien tapped softly on his daughter's room. "Raye, can I come in?" He entered when he heard her assent.

Raye lay on the bed, a phone held securely to her ear and her open books littered around her. "Just a second, Chad."

Darien immediately frowned. Chad? He wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. He crossed the room and planted a kiss on her forehead. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, daddy." She smiled innocently at him, just like she used to do when she was a little girl and wanted to stay up past her bedtime.

"Have you checked on Heather?" He moved an algebra book aside and sat down beside her. When she put her head on his shoulder, he smiled. Some things never changed, and for that, he was glad.

"She's fine," Raye assured him quickly, leading him to think she didn't check on her sister at all.

"Have you finished your homework yet?" A slightly guilty expression was his answer. "Raye…."

"Okay, okay. Just let me say goodbye, alright?" Darien nodded but he stayed where he was to make sure she really was saying goodbye instead of lingering on the phone. With _Chad_.

As if she sensed her father's disapproval about her talking to a boy on the phone, she spoke in hushed tones. "I've got to go, Chad. See you in class tomorrow. Bye."

Darien didn't like the way she said bye to that boy, the way she drew the monosyllabic word out into three. Where did she learn to talk like a woman? His little girl was growing up on him. At least he still had Heather. Speaking of whom….

"I'm going to check up on Heather now, unless you need my help with anything."

"That's okay, daddy. I got some help from my friend." Raye blushed but didn't say anything else lest her father pick up on her growing crush on a certain shaggy-haired surfer. "Goodnight daddy."

She kissed him on the cheek and gave him a hug, instantly making him feel better. This Chad person may be the new man in his daughter's life, but he was always going to be the first. "Goodnight, baby."

He closed the door softly and walked down the hall to Heather's room. "Honey? Are you okay?" he asked as he opened the door. The lamp beside Heather's bed illuminated the room softly, and he was able to see his daughter curled up underneath her fluffy duvet, clutching her well-worn teddy bear in her arms. His heart constricted.

"Daddy?" Her voice sounded small and vulnerable. "Is that you?"

Darien gently lowered himself on the bed and forced his voice to remain light. "Trista told me you had a tummy ache." She nodded her head but didn't say anything. In fact, she turned her face away from him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Darien sighed. It seemed that females, no matter what the age, seemed to instinctively know how to drive a man crazy by pretending there was nothing wrong when obviously there was.

"Tell me."

"No. It's embarrassing."

"I'm your dad; you don't have to be embarrassed about anything." Heather sighed a remarkably grown-up sigh.

"It's because you're my dad that I don't want to tell you." By now, Darien was getting fed up with her caginess.

"Just whisper it in my ear, then. I promise not to get mad." When she didn't make a sound, Darien gently hefted her up to a sitting position. "Come on. Tell your old dad what's wrong."

With worry in her eyes and a blush on her cheeks, she cupped her hand around his ear and whispered. Darien's eyebrows raised all the way up to his hairline. Whatever he thought she was going to tell him, he hadn't been expecting that.

"Well, golly." Was all he could say. "Other than the pain, are you okay? Do you need anything?" Heather nodded, to his dismay.

"My teacher gave me some stuff for today but I need to go buy more tomorrow. Can you buy them for me at the drugstore?"

He kissed his daughter's head and assured her he would, even though it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. Now he really was depressed. It seemed as though his little girls had grown up on him while his head was turned. One daughter was talking on the phone with a boy he didn't know and now Heather…Well. He supposed if he just said it in one breath, it wouldn't be so bad. Besides, it wasn't as if she could help it, right? Well, here goes…

"Heather got her period today," he mumbled, stunned that his twelve-year old daughter, the one who still watched The Care Bears and abhorred Britney Spears, was becoming a woman. "She got her period and she wants me to buy her pads."

There, that wasn't so bad, was it? Except now he wanted to drown his sorrows in a good, stiff drink.

* * *

_I want to thank Ladysolo for editing this chapter, even though she was preparing to go on a trip to Raleigh. Even though it was express serviced to me about 24 hours after she received it, she went above and beyond the call of duty to edit this chapter. You are my editing guru, LS!_

_I'll be posting a copy of this chapter with LS' corrections in my LJ at **h t t p : w w w . l i v e j o u r n a l . c o m / u s e r s/ crfiction**  (just edit out the spaces between the characters when you paste the URL into the address bar and add the underscore between cr and fiction if it got removed). See LS smack some editing sense into CR! See CR run. Run, CR, run. coff Anyway, if you have any questions or comments that you'd like me to clarify, leave me a review and I'll answer you in my LJ (see address above). All review responses will be made there as I don't like to do reviewer shout-outs at the bottom of my chapters._

_Also! Check out my C2 archive, A WISE Decision, at **h t t p : w w w . fanfiction . net / c 2 / 3 0 5 3 / 0 / 1 /** (same as above—remove the spaces). Read, subscribe, review. I'm taking fic recommendations if you have any!_

_Once again, thanks for reading this chapter. Stay tuned for the next one which should be out soon (if you're all good D)_


	7. Chapter Six

---

The incessant ring of the phone penetrated through Mina's dream where she was torturing that sleaze bag Vinny with various sharp and pointy objects. Why must she wake up when her life is so much better here? Mina buried her head under the pillow and growled, willing the phone to stop ringing. Who the hell was calling her at this ungodly hour? It was only—she peered out from under the pillow to check the digital alarm clock on the floor—one o'clock in the damn afternoon!

God, she could use a smoke. Too bad she and Serena quit together two years ago after having smoked since they were in their teens. They supported each other, policed each other, bitched at each other when the cravings were at their worst. It was a good thing they had each other to lean on—getting over those damn nicotine cravings were a bitch and a half. Yep, the Lombard sisters took family bonding to a higher level.

Realizing that the phone wasn't going to stop ringing just because she was using her as-of-yet-undiscovered telekinetic powers, Mina slammed a hand on the handset and growled, "Yes?"

"Is this Mina Lombard?" a bland female voice asked. Mina sucked her teeth grouchily, peeved that she was brought out of her lovely dream for this.

"Shouldn't you know who you're calling before you actually call?" The woman started to bluster but Mina didn't let her get a word in edgewise. "Yeah, this is Mina. What the hell do you want?"

The woman's voice was positively icy when she finally regained her powers of speech. "Please hold for Mr. Cutter."

Mina was about to protest against being put on hold for a call she didn't even place when there was a click and the line was silent. Damn. She didn't know who the hell this Cutter person was, nor did she want to know. She just wanted to sink into her bed and lose herself in the oblivion of sleep.

Just as she was about to hang up, the line clicked again and a deep male voice greeted her. "Mina Lombard? This is Nathan Cutter of Cutting Edge Talent."

Mina's eyes widened as her jaw dropped. Nathan Cutter, the big-time Hollywood agent? Nathan Cutter, the man who represented some of Hollywood's up-and-coming new stars? Nathan Cutter, the person who held practically all of Hollywood in his fist?

What the hell was he doing calling her?

Mina tried to sound cool, as if she didn't give a rat's ass who he was and what a call from him meant to a struggling actress like her. "What can I do for you, Mr. Cutter?" She was so conscious of not sounding like a prepubescent teen that she ended up sounding like Kathleen Turner on crack. Oh well, better her than Peewee Herman.

Papers rustled in the background as Mina waited on tenterhooks for what one of the most powerful men in Hollywood had to say to her. "I've seen some of your earlier work and while I wasn't impressed with the material, I was definitely impressed with you."

Mina's slowly sat up on her mattress, not believing her ears. Nathan Cutter was impressed with _her_? Her skin started to tingle as if she somehow knew on a subconscious level that her life was about to change with this one phone call. Maybe she was just imagining this whole conversation. After all, not getting any fresh air and living off of macaroni & cheese for a whole week _had_ to do some funny things to one's system. She switched the phone to her other ear just to be sure she wasn't hearing things.

"Listen, Mina. I know this is a bit unexpected but I'd like to schedule a meeting with you, just to see if you're as magnetic in person as you are onscreen. If that's all right with you, that is."

"Of course it is!" Mina exclaimed. She cleared her throat, forcibly restraining herself from gushing like a teenybopper. "I would like that very much, Mr. Cutter."

"Good. You can set up an appointment with my secretary. The sooner the better."

Mina nodded her head, forgetting that he couldn't see her. "I'll do that, sir."

"I'll see you then. Let me connect you with my secretary," he said.

"How may I help you?" the disembodied bland voice asked. Mina wondered if this woman's face matched her voice, and if it did, then that was very unfortunate indeed.

"I would like to book an appointment with Mr. Cutter as soon as possible, please."

The wide grin that was slowly starting to spread threatened to split her face. She could hear the clicking of keys as the secretary searched for an opening in Nathan Cutter's schedule.

"I can put you in next Thursday at ten thirty." Her tone left no room for discussion; if she passed up this opportunity, she was never going to get another chance with him.

"I'll take it," Mina said quickly. She did a lot of stupid things but screwing up her career twice in one week was too much, even for her.

"Good, we'll see you then." Mina was feeling too good to notice that the woman had already hung up on her.

She squealed and spiked her cordless phone on the bed like a football, which was appropriate since she felt like she had just won the Super Bowl. It had been a week since she had been falsely accused of being one of Vinny's harem girls and she had spent every single day since then holed up in her apartment. Somehow she managed to stretch her mac & cheese supply to last her an extra three days, but then again, it wasn't like she had much of an appetite.

She sniffed the air around her; after wallowing in her pajamas for a whole week, she was more than a little ripe. Perhaps today was a good day to finally take a shower. She gathered up some clean clothes and disappeared into the bathroom.

A half-hour later, she emerged from the steamy bathroom in a clean pair of shorts and a tank top. Her hair had been scrubbed clean and was pulled back in a ponytail, and her skin glowed after a vigorous exfoliation. It was amazing how a simple thing like a shower lifted her spirits and made her feel like a new person. She thought of her upcoming appointment with Nathan Cutter and grinned foolishly. If things with him went as well as she hoped, she was going to be a household name sooner than she thought. That would show her mother.

Mina's eyes widened. Her mother! She still had to tell her parents what had happened last week. She started to panic for a minute, wondering how she was going to break the news to them, when she remembered that Nathan Cutter was going to represent her. There was no room for false modesty here—_he_ was the one who called her, after all, not the other way around. So let her mother bitch at her—it wasn't as if there was anything new about that. Let her try to wrap her brain around the fact that her daughter was _this_ close to becoming a star. She opened her mouth in a silent shriek—her neighbour worked the night shift and didn't like any noises during the day.

Vinny, her parents, those "producers"…they could all kiss her tight white ass for doubting her talent. If _Nathan Cutter_ was impressed by her work, who were they to try to bring her down? She could just picture it now: she, in a sleek black Valentino creation, beating out Julia Roberts for Best Leading Actress at the Academy Awards, snubbing all her detractors in her acceptance speech. What a great way to give them the finger without actually doing it!

Someone started knocking on her door and she jumped. She still lived in fear that her door was going to be kicked in by police officers looking to arrest her on another trumped up charge. Then she realized how silly she was being; she couldn't live the rest of her life in fear of cops, especially when she did nothing wrong. It was probably just Serena at the door, finally sick of always getting the answering machine no matter what time during the day she called.

She raced to the door, eager to share her good news with her sister. She pulled open the door and said, "Hey, guess what?"

Mina stopped short of what she was about to say. It wasn't Serena after all; it was a cop. Detective Andrew Mulligan, to be exact. He was leaning against the doorframe, clutching something in a brown paper sack, an easy grin on his face that under different circumstances Mina would find remarkably sexy.

"What?" he asked, playing along. He flashed her another smile and Mina found it very difficult indeed to remember why she was mad at him. But there was no easy way to forget the person who had arrested you and falsely accused you of being a prostitute.

"I thought you were someone else," Mina answered stonily. She didn't invite him in but she didn't tell him to leave either. Instead she just walked away, leaving the door open. "What can I do for you, Detective?" she asked over her shoulder.

He took the open door as an invitation to come in. He surveyed the apartment with the shrewd eyes of a cop but didn't comment on the sparse furnishings. Even though the place had a 'just-moved-in' look, he had a feeling she'd been here for a while. "I think I have something of yours."

She turned to him. "And what's that? My dignity? My self-respect?"

Andrew held up the paper bag like a peace offering to appease an angry deity. "I'm afraid it isn't as fundamental as that. Your purse, Ms. Lombard," he said, pulling the item out of the bag with a flourish. "Somebody dropped it off at the precinct yesterday and I happened to recognize it from your…er, visit with us."

Mina looked at the bag disinterestedly and shrugged. "You can set it down over there," she said, pointing to the garbage can. That bag held too many reminders of that awful day and she wanted it out of her sight. Besides, if all goes well with her meeting next Thursday, she can replace that bag with a million other bags sporting labels like Kate Spade, Prada, and Louis Vuitton. That thrift store purse could go to hell along with Vinny for all she cared.

Andrew turned the purse over in concern. "Are you sure you want to throw this out?" he asked. "There wasn't any money left in your wallet but everything's in pretty decent shape."

Mina snorted in contempt. "The wallet's empty for the simple fact that there wasn't anything in it to begin with. Look around you, Detective. Does it look like I'm rolling in money?"

"All the more reason for you to keep your purse," he insisted, setting it down on a milk crate/table.

"Look, is there some other reason you're here?" Mina asked irritably. "I don't think returning lost and stolen items is in your job description. Besides, isn't this a little out of your jurisdiction? I know I'm living below the poverty line, but last time I checked, I'm not quite in the projects yet."

"I just thought you wanted to know that Vinny is going to be sentenced next week. If the judge is a real hard-ass, I'm thinking he's going to prison for a very long time," Andrew said. He levelled a serious gaze at her, his emerald green eyes narrowed and focused. "You could make a victim-impact statement to help the judge make his decision."

Now here was an opportunity to get back at that worm. Mina had to admit the good detective came up with a good one there. "What day and what time?"

"Next Thursday at ten." Mina made a sound of regret and shook her head.

"No can do, Detective. I've got a meeting with a prospective agent that day at ten-thirty. As much as I would love to pound that last nail in Vinny's coffin, I don't want to give him a second chance in screwing up my career," she replied sadly.

"Hey, it's okay. There are two other girls from your former agency that were victims just like you, and they're willing to give statements. Having yours would've been great, but I'm sure the DA can do without it, especially since Vinny already confessed." He looked around for a place to sit down that wasn't on the floor but was unsuccessful.

Mina noticed this and tried to hide her embarrassment behind her usual brand of sarcasm. "I'd tell you to pull up a chair, but you'd have to bring it from home."

"No, it's okay," he assured her as he pointed towards the door. "I was just leaving."

"Well, thanks for dropping off my purse and letting me know about Vinny." Mina brushed past him and held the door open. "Goodbye, Detective."

Andrew paused just as he was about to cross the threshold and looked at her over his shoulder. "You know, my friends call me Andrew, or Drew for short."

"That must be such a privilege for them," she drawled. "Please don't take this the wrong way, Detective, but I hope never to see you again."

Andrew shrugged; well, he couldn't win over everybody, especially the ones he falsely arrested. He usually didn't like being wrong about his suspects, but in this case, he was mighty glad she had been innocent of the charges. Well, except the resisting arrest charge, which he never formally filed, but he could understand her reaction since he would've done the same thing in her place. He gave her a small salute and smiled to show no hard feelings. "Well, you never know Ms. Lombard. Good luck with your meeting."

Mina watched him walk down the hall, his steps long and sure. He seemed so self-confident and her petty insults just kept bouncing off him as if her attitude didn't bother him at all. She closed the door moments later when he reached the stairwell and she couldn't see him anymore.

"'You never know', my ass," she muttered under her breath. She picked up the purse he had been so kind to return and tossed it in the trash after going through it to make sure she didn't leave anything important behind, like her keys or her ID. It was sad, parting with her favourite purse, but she didn't think she could realistically look at it without thinking of that terrible day.

Just like her life-altering shower, tossing her purse was another signal to the start of her new life. Oddly enough, it took hitting rock bottom to realize just what she needed to dig herself out of the hole she had made with her own bare hands. She sighed and inspected her nails. This was going to be hell on her manicure.

---

Six days, seven nights. That was how long Greg had been following Ms. Amy Miller, a.k.a. The Most Boring Person on Earth. From home to office to the park for lunch back to the office and finally back home: that pretty much made up Amy's—and now Greg's—whole day. He supposed he could've eased his watch on her since she was practically an automaton programmed to live her life with as little variety as possible, but with his crappy luck, the day he ditched her would be the day she did something useful like burn down Shields' house or rob the bank of all its money, thus rendering Shields bankrupt.

One can only dream.

Sometimes Greg thought it would be wiser to move on with his life and forget about his vendetta against Shields, but he knew that was impossible. The day he lost his job at Global Advertising was the day he vowed to get even with Shields for ruining his life. He envisioned himself as a modern-day Zorro, avenging everyone Shields had wronged. Shields didn't care whose lives he fucked with when he decided to axe their jobs at Global Advertising, so he figured anything he did to Shields would just be karma repaying him for being such an unfeeling bastard.

Well, that's all about to change. Greg was going to make sure of it. By the time Greg exacted his revenge, Darien Shields wouldn't know what hit him. And little Ms. Amy Miller was going to help him do it—she just didn't know it yet.

He patted the pocket that contained his pack of smokes and wished he could just light up as he contemplated his next move. He needed to figure out how to use Amy Miller to get in MediaWorks. From there, it shouldn't be too hard to blend into the MediaWorks atmosphere, to fly below the radar, biding his time before crushing Shields like the bug that he was.

But before he could do any bug-crushing, he first had to play shadow to Amy while she did her grocery shopping. To do this, he actually had to walk around with a basket of food he couldn't afford, just so he wouldn't look suspicious walking around a grocery store without buying anything.

Greg watched Amy pluck two boxes of wheat crackers. Oh for God's sake, she was comparing the nutritional labels on the boxes. Again. Greg mentally groaned. They had been in the store for almost two hours now because she had to examine, analyse, compare and contemplate over each item before she put it into her cart. She treated grocery shopping—as with every other aspect of her life, it seemed—like a science experiment. No wonder her life was as bland as the fat-free, cholesterol-free, sodium-free and, most likely, taste-free food she took a shining to.

She was just as particular about her produce, Greg noticed. Of course, it was kind of hard not to notice, given that she must've rejected about thirty apples before finding six that met her high standards.

For some reason, that made Greg smile. He could take a few lessons on proper nutritional intake from Ms. Miller. He looked at the items he had absently put in his basket: a bag of marshmallows, a can of squirt cheese, a package of caramel candy, and a can of dog food.

Dog food? Greg took the can out of the basket and discretely buried it in a pile of oranges. He was allergic to the vile beasts. Or at least, that was what he claimed every time he came across one.

He quickly ducked behind a display of olive oil as Amy pushed her cart past him on the way to the checkout counter. Finally, the end was near. Greg left his basket of junk food beside the display and hurried past the checkout counters, keeping his head towards the windows overlooking the parking lot to make sure Amy didn't notice him. He would wait for her outside and take up the surveillance when she comes out. Stalking a person as anally retentive as Amy Miller only made his nicotine cravings that much stronger.

He picked up a discarded newspaper and opened it, pretending to read a scintillating article about the plight of the rainforests in Brazil (his only thought was: there were rainforests in Brazil?), waiting for Amy to pay for her heart-healthy purchases so he can follow her home again. He just had to keep reminding himself that all this stalking was going to pay off eventually; the mental image of Shields' bloody face helped keep him focused on the end goal.

Greg frowned and lowered his newspaper to look at the sky. Was bloodying Shields' face really the end goal for him? If messing up his face was all he wanted, then why the hell was he going through all this trouble to stalk Amy Miller? He could just abandon this half-baked plan of his and jump Shields in the underground garage at the end of the day. No, that would be too simple and too lenient for what Shields had done to him and every other employee that was laid off at Global Advertising. He needed Shields to feel a pain that was deeper than any he could inflict with his fists. To do that, he had to get within spitting distance of that bastard.

He needed Amy Miller to take him there.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Amy walking out the door clutching two paper bags. The corner of Greg's mouth lifted in a tiny half grin. It figured she'd be the paper bag type. If she wouldn't pollute her body with preservatives and additives, then she wouldn't pollute the environment with non-recyclable plastics.

He hid the lower half of his face with the newspaper but he might as well have been invisible. The woman was oblivious to everything except what was directly in front of her, kind of like a racehorse with blinders on. If she was this way in her relationships it was no wonder she was single. He slowly started following her, being careful not to get too close just in case she got wise to him. She didn't live too far away from the store, which made frequent trips very convenient for both of them. Amy commuted everywhere she went—she didn't have a car—so that made it easy for Greg to keep up with her as she went about her daily business.

A car horn behind him caught Greg's attention. He just barely dodged getting hit by a Corvette being driven by what looked like a panicked teenage girl.

"Shit," he muttered as the car jumped the curb onto the sidewalk. "What the fuck's that kid doing?"

The car swerved to avoid hitting a mailbox as outraged and frightened pedestrians yelled obscenities at the driver. Greg's eyes widened as he saw the car barrelling down toward Amy who, unsurprisingly, was completely unaware of the drama unfolding a few feet away from her.

He ran towards Amy, determined to stop this crazy teenager from running over his little foot-in-the-door. When the horn blasted again, perhaps in warning, Amy turned around, an annoyed expression on her face. She saw the car heading straight for her and froze. Her hands went slack and her bags fell on the sidewalk, spilling their bland contents on the concrete. She opened her mouth in a silent scream, which never had a chance to materialize because Greg tackled her to the ground before the car could mow her down.

They hit the ground hard, Greg covering Amy's body with his. Nothing was going to happen to this girl before he got his revenge—he was going to make sure of that. The car sped off without even stopping, and turned at the first corner.

Greg hoisted himself off Amy and leaned down over her. She had turned white as a sheet and her pupils were slightly dilated. She was going into mild shock. Quickly, Greg lightly tapped her cheeks. "Hey, are you okay? Stay with me, now. Don't go all weird on me." He continued to gently slap her cheek until her colour started coming back and her pupils became normal again. "You feeling better?"

Amy nodded jerkily. She struggled to get up, but the man who looked so familiar to her, restrained her with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Maybe you'd better just relax there for a minute," he said kindly. She blushed when he leaned closer, his face just inches away from hers. He could tell that she wasn't used to people getting close to her. "I'm just making sure you're all right," he reassured her.

She nodded shyly and licked her lips. "I think I'm okay, now. What happened?"

Greg's face clouded over as he thought about how very nearly she had gotten run over. If he wanted to use this woman to get him into MediaWorks, he was going to have to make sure nothing happened to her. "Some idiot teenager couldn't get control of the car she was driving and jumped the curb and almost ran you over," he explained.

He extended a hand as she silently took in the news that she was almost killed. "Let me help you up." She weighed practically nothing, Greg observed as he gently pulled her up. Must be that cardboard diet she was on. "I'm afraid that I ripped your pants when I knocked you down," he said, looking at the small tear on her knee. "I'm sorry about that."

Amy's surveyed the damage and deemed it a small price to pay for keeping her life. "That's okay; I'll live." Realizing how true her statement was, her eyes widened. "You saved my life. How can I ever repay you?"

_You can give him head, for starters._ Amy mentally groaned as she heard that all-too familiar voice. She silently willed Tammy to get lost but she stubbornly remained, sizing up the stranger with an assessing eye, as if he were a pair of shoes she was contemplating on buying. _As saviours go, this one's not so bad. He looks familiar, though._

Amy clenched her jaw and focused on the extremely difficult task of ignoring Tammy. But how does one effectively ignore one's own mental creation?

_You got me._ Tammy turned annoyed eyes at her. _Now let's just get something straight between us. You created me, not the other way around, which means that you actually _want_ me here. So stop pretending that I always pop out of the blue to inconvenience you._

Amy blinked in surprise. For an incorporeal being, Tammy sure did make sense sometimes. Damn, she was never going to hear the end of this one. She jumped when the stranger snapped his fingers in her face.

"Hey, are you sure you're all right? You didn't bump your head or anything, did you?" That was just the last thing he needed from this woman: a trip to the emergency room. As her official stalker and self-appointed guardian, he'd have to sit it out with her just to make sure she was fine.

Amy blushed, embarrassed that she was caught in one of her little mental conversations with Tammy. This was happening too much lately. First Mr. Shields walks in on her talking to herself, or rather, Tammy, now this man catches her worrying about Tammy's sure-to-be-endless teasing. Perhaps she really _was_ going crazy; Tammy became more real to her every single day.

She realized he was still staring at her so she coughed lightly and said, "No, my head's fine—"

_HA!_

"—and I was just thinking how brave you were." She cursed herself for saying it but he just smiled.

"Well, I couldn't let anything happen to you, now, could I?" His voice had gone velvety smooth and the corner of his mouth turned upwards in a half smile, half smirk. If she only knew the true meaning of that statement.

Amy cast her eyes downward and stammered, "Well, I—you don't even…I mean.." God, she was such an idiot.

_I concur._

Of course…why didn't he see it before? Greg suppressed the urge to dance triumphantly on the hood of a nearby car. It looked like he was going to have to play up the romantic hero role just a little bit more: Ms. Bland and Boring wanted a boyfriend. It was so obvious from the way she kept stealing glances at him when she thought he wouldn't notice, and the way she was so jittery every time he came near her. It was a testament to how far he was willing to go that he was actually going to woo this timid creature.

To test out his theory, Greg lightly placed his hand on the small of her back and directed her to her fallen groceries, and said, "Looks like you need some help with all this stuff. Why don't I gather up all your stuff and walk you home? Those bags look like they might fall apart any minute. Just point the way and we'll be off." He flashed her a grin and pretended not to notice the flush spreading across her cheeks. If she lost the glasses and the perpetually blank expression, she might actually be a looker, Greg thought. But she was still too plain for his tastes.

"No, really. You don't have to do that," Amy protested, moving to crouch down beside him.

_Ah, let him do it,_ Tammy said as she examined the man with a magnifying glass. _You don't think_ I'll _carry all your shit for you, do you? Need I remind you that I have see-through arms? Now, where have I seen this man before?_

Amy didn't know either but she knew Tammy was right—she _had_ seen this man before. Recently, too. There was just something about him that was so familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She watched him putting one of her carefully selected organically grown grapefruit into a tattered bag, all the while trying to jog her memory.

Was he from work? Amy shook her head against that theory. If he were from work, she'd recognize him for sure. While Amy wasn't the most popular person at the office, she knew practically everyone on a superficial level. She was one of the receptionists for the accounting department so she had contact with practically everyone in the company. No, she'd never seen him before at MediaWorks.

"Well, that's all of them," he said, dropping a jar of all-natural peanut butter on top of her organically grown, whole wheat toast with oats, sunflower seeds and raisins, crushing it down the middle. Greg almost laughed when she cringed, probably dreading the thought of eating uneven slices of bread, but she was too polite to say anything.

"Have I seen you before?"

"I was wondering if you'd remember," he answered with a grin. "I'm Greg Saunders; we met in the park a few days ago. I helped you pick up your papers." He tried a teasing grin and was rewarded with another innocent blush. "It seems that I'm always picking up after you every time we meet."

Amy's eyes widened as it dawned on her that the man who saved her life was the same person she had mentally accused of being a serial rapist. Beside her, Tammy was pumping her fist in triumph, shouting _I knew it! I was_ just _about to tell you we saw him at the park but I wanted to see if you'd remember first._ Amy didn't bother to tell her she really doubted that.

She stared at him for a moment, not knowing how to react. Realizing that he was staring at her with a gleam in his eye, she cleared her throat and said, "As I recall, you weren't much help then." She winced and called herself, with Tammy's assistance, every name in the book. The man had saved her life and all she could do was rag him for not being more helpful at their first meeting. "But, um…thanks for saving my life today. I really, uh…appreciate it."

Greg was smiling but he was clutching the bag that contained her precious loaf of bread in a death grip. Uptight, ungrateful bitch. Would it kill her to at least try to sound genuine? "No problem. I'm just glad you were okay. That car came really close to running over you."

"Don't remind me." Amy still couldn't believe she was almost killed.

_Makes you wonder where your life has gone, doesn't it?_ Tammy was sitting on the hood of a parked car, cracking her gum loudly. _You could've died and no one would notice. You'd just fade into death the same way you faded into life._

_Shut up._ Tammy was wrong; people _would_ notice if she were gone. Her coworkers would have to make their own photocopies from now on; her parents wouldn't be billed for her therapy sessions and her landlord wouldn't get her monthly rent.

"Come on, I'll walk you home," Greg said, breaking her out of her thoughts. He was getting irritated with the way she kept slipping in and out of reality; it was definitely hard to keep up the image of dashing hero if she didn't even pay attention. He took her arm and started walking down the street towards her apartment complex.

Amy stopped short and tugged her arm away from his hold. "How'd you know where I live?" She didn't care if he saved her life or not; all the old suspicions were back. She glanced around warily, thinking that she'd abandon her groceries if she had to run away from him.

Greg swore to himself inwardly and struggled to maintain his easygoing demeanour. This bitch didn't miss a trick. His mind whirled furiously as he cast about for a reasonable excuse, then simply said, "I saw you heading this way earlier. I was going to say hi, but you looked so deep in thought, I didn't want to disturb you."

"Oh," Amy stammered. She felt ridiculous and embarrassed for distrusting a man who obviously meant her no harm. After all, he came to her aid on two separate occasions and never asked for anything in return. She could feel her walls slowly start to crumble and she was surprised to find that she didn't care. Maybe there was hope for her yet.

Slowly, as if she was aware of the huge step she was taking, Amy laid her hand on Greg's arm and gently tugged on it. "Come on, my apartment's this way."

This time, Greg smiled genuinely and allowed Amy to lead him to her home, even though he already knew where it is. He was following her again, only this time, she was aware of it. There would be no more need to stalk Amy Miller now; by the time he was done romancing Amy, she'd be willing to follow him to the ends of the earth, if he so desired it of her. But she needn't worry about that, as long as she got him into MediaWorks.

Meanwhile, Amy walked down the street on Greg's arm. Her hips swayed in an unfamiliar rhythm; she believed it was called a 'strut'. God, if someone told her that she'd be strutting down the street after being saved from almost turning into roadkill, she'd have called him a damn liar.

She grinned slyly at a gaping Tammy as she passed her on the street corner. She enjoyed the look on her alter ego's face: the way her mouth hung open in disbelief; her eyes bugging out almost comically; her eyebrows almost disappearing into her hairline. It was priceless, and she was absurdly proud that she had been the cause of it.

_Well, I'll be damned…_

Amy's smile got larger and her strut became…struttier. She had a feeling things were going to start changing from this moment forward, and it's all because of the man on her arm.

She couldn't wait to rub it in Molly's face that she had a new boyfriend. She'd tell her that he saved her life from a runaway car, that he walked her home, that he made love to her like an animal and made her scream….

Well, _when_ that happened, she'd rub it in Molly's face but good. But she had better things to think about than that bitch, like what kind of food her boyfriend liked to eat, how he wanted her to dress, and act, and look. What kind of lover he'd be.

The rest of the walk was spent in silence, Amy mentally flipping through her lingerie collection deciding what to wear for their first night together, Greg going over his plan to seduce Amy, and both thinking that the other was none the wiser.

---

"Pull over, Raye! Pull over!" Chad screamed a few blocks away from the crowded grocery store parking lot. "Shit, you could've killed someone!"

Raye jerked the wheel hard to the right, causing the tires to squeal in protest. She slammed her foot on the brake and yanked on the gearshift to park the car. God, her hands were shaking, she almost ran over that woman back there, and Chad was screaming in her ear. A long time ago, her mother died in a car accident…and now, in her recklessness, she had almost killed two people while she was behind the wheel of Chad's car. She was going to throw up.

Sensing this, Chad's face darkened and said, "Oh no, you don't. Babe, you've fucked around with my car enough for one day. If you need to puke, I suggest you do it outside."

Chad's rebuke was enough to make her swallow the bitter bile working its way up her throat. She was not going to humiliate herself in front of Chad…again. What was she thinking, telling him that she knew how to drive? She had had only two or three driving lessons her entire life, all of them given by her dad who insisted that his hair turned greyer each time, and they were only in an empty parking lot! What made her think she was ready for the streets when even her father told her she wasn't?

Everything bad that happened as a result of her being behind the wheel was her father's fault. He didn't train her enough.

Instead of spilling her guts—literally—in Chad's car, she turned to him and said icily, "I am not going to throw up in your precious car, Chad. I just felt woozy for a second but I'm glad to see which one of us is more important to you.

"And I know I almost killed someone. I was there, remember?" Her violet eyes blazed through stormy tears.

Chad cursed at the sight of her tears and turned away. Fuck, she was _not_ going to rob him of his right to chew her out. But damn it, he hated seeing girls cry. Against his better judgement, he put a hand on her shoulder and patted it gently, if not awkwardly. "You told me that you knew how to drive," he said, unable to keep the accusing tone out of his voice.

Raye winced and shrugged his hand off her shoulder. "I told you that I've driven a few times in New York. What you made of that is your business," she said loftily.

"You asked me if you could drive my car!" He didn't know why he hung out with this chick with a chip on her shoulder the size of the city she came from. She could be so frustrating sometimes.

"And you let me," she replied simply. "Whatever happened after that was fate."

"Fate?" he exclaimed. "Fate had nothing to do with your almost flattening two people back there. Your _inability to drive_, however, does."

"Believe what you want to believe," she said. Raye was almost enjoying seeing Chad's face getting angrier and angrier. She wondered how far she could go with her passive-aggressive line of defence before she'd have to own up to the truth.

Chad clenched his jaw, trying to keep himself in control. Did she really believe this bunk she was spewing? He kept both his hands splayed on the dashboard so they wouldn't wrap themselves around her pretty little throat. He was aware that Raye was watching him apprehensively but he didn't say anything or even look at her. He couldn't.

When he finally composed himself, he turned his head and said very softly, "Unbuckle your seat belt and get out of the car. I'm driving you home."

Raye flinched at the curt order. Without a word, she did as he commanded, keeping her eyes to the ground when they passed each other at the front of the car.

The ride home was as tense as it was quiet. Raye kept her eyes averted, taking in the swaying palm trees as they drove towards her house, unable to believe that she had royally fucked up her one chance to…to what? Impress him? No, she might have a slight, _very_ slight, crush on Chad, but she would never go out of her way for some boy. She was too good to grovel at someone's feet; her father taught her that lesson the night she found out that the boy who took her to the local make-out spot had impregnated one of her classmates and left town. She wasn't going to make a fool of herself by leaping into his arms the first chance she got. Not again.

Chad watched Raye reconstruct the brick wall he had worked so hard to tear down ever since they met and cursed himself a thousand times over. The truth was that the majority of the blame lay on his shoulders, not Raye's. He should've have made sure she knew how to drive—_and_ had a license—before letting her get behind the wheel of his car. Hell, she shouldn't have even been there in the first place.

He pulled into her driveway and turned to her and said hesitantly, "Listen, Raye, I'm sorry for biting your head off—"

Raye whipped her head around to face him, her expression neutral. "There's no need to apologize, Chad. After all, I _did_ fuck around with your car and almost kill two people," she said in an eerily calm voice, echoing his words back to him. Chad didn't know how she did it but Raye was actually scarier like this than when she yelled at him. And she yelled at him _a lot_. She yelled at him when he was late picking her up for school. She got really mad at him when he mixed up their lunch order and she wound up with a double-decker cheeseburger with pickles when she specifically told him to order a double-decker cheeseburger with bacon and _no_ pickles. Oh, and just the other day she verbally kicked his ass for looking at a bikini-clad surfer chick for a fraction of a second too long. Chad shook his head ruefully; he was already pussy-whipped, and they weren't even going out!

As perverse as the thought was, Chad would've preferred the screaming banshee version of Raye to the potentially dangerous ice maiden beside him. If she was yelling at him, she wasn't ignoring him. "Raye, I didn't mean it that way," he began hesitantly.

"Nevertheless, that's the way I'm taking it," she replied as she unbuckled her seat belt. She was doing a hell of a job ignoring him, even though she never once backed down from his gaze. She had mastered the art of the blank stare from a young age, ever since her therapist had begun suggesting that she move on with her life after the accident that killed her mom.

Move on with her life with her mother dead in the ground? The very thought struck her as ludicrous, and so, her patented blank stare was born.

Right now, though, she _really_ needed to get the hell out of that car because she could feel her blank stare wavering. She was losing her battle against the imminent tears and she didn't want them spilling over in front of _him_. She mustered up the last of her inner strength and said, "I'm sorry about what happened today, Chad. It won't happen again." With that, she unbuckled her seat belt and made her exit—not in a hurried dash that would give the impression that she was fleeing from him, but in a controlled, graceful way as though she were dismissing him.

Only when she was far enough away from that cursed car did she finally give in to the trembling she felt ever since she got the insane idea to drive it. She never would've followed through but once Chad had agreed to let her, there was no going back; her pride simply wouldn't allow it. How was she supposed to know that he wasn't as possessive with his car as some other guys were? She'd pleaded with Chad to let her drive his car, fully expecting him to say no; when he finally relented, she had no other choice but to switch seats with him and try to drive that thing.

She heard a car door slam behind her and quickened her steps so she could reach her house before Chad reached her. Her hands frantically dug through her purse for her house keys and finally found them at the very bottom. She allowed herself a brief pause to wonder why it was that the most important items—like a set of keys, for instance—almost always migrated to the bottom of one's purse where it would lie buried under a mountain of crap that one didn't need.

Raye stiffened when she felt a rough hand catch her arm and spin her around. She wound up facing Chad, who was wearing a very grim expression on his face. She lifted her chin in a defiant pose she didn't really feel and asked, "Is there something I can do for you?"

"You can start by quitting this 'holier-than-thou' priestess routine you've got going," Chad replied through gritted teeth. His surfer-boy 'accent' had disappeared, giving Raye full indication that he was angry or upset, or perhaps even both. Still, she bristled just to keep up appearances.

"I do not act that way," she told him evenly, masking her hurt. "However, if that is how you see me, then I apologize for making you feel inferior to me, and hope that you can forgive me."

Chad's hand tightened its hold of her arm. "Stop being so passive-aggressive, damn it! I know you're mad at me, so why don't you just give in to the urge and yell at me for being a complete idiot!" he growled. He let go of her arm abruptly and raked a frustrated hand through his wavy hair. "God, you can be so frustrating sometimes."

Raye's eyes narrowed, her fiery temper finally starting to get the best of her. She didn't appreciate Chad rubbing her mistake in her face, especially when she'd already apologized profusely for it. First he called her a 'holier-than-thou priestess', then passive-aggressive, and now he called her frustrating. He had some nerve!

"You have some nerve!" she spat, jabbing a finger at his chest, which, she was surprised to learn, was rock hard. Who knew all that surfing could produce muscles like that? She shook herself from her runaway thoughts and said, poking him again with her finger for good measure, "Don't you think I feel bad enough about it already? You keep rubbing it in my face as though you _like_ making me feel bad. Well, then, this should make your day: _I feel miserable about it!_

"Do you think I _wanted_ that to happen? That I woke up this morning and thought, 'hmm…I haven't committed any acts of vehicle homicide lately; today seems like the perfect day to do it!'" Her voice rose with each word and she was aware that Chad was slowly backing away from her, but she didn't care. There was no way she could humiliate herself any further than she already had, and she figured that today was the last time she'd ever see Chad again, so she had nothing to lose. Stubborn tears welled up in her eyes at the thought and she dashed them away before they could spill over.

Raye's face was more expressive than she thought, Chad observed. In just the span of a few seconds, her expression went from aloof, to furious, and finally vulnerable and repentant. She had always seemed so strong and independent to him; to see her on the brink of tears—twice now—humanized her in a way he never could've imagined. Somehow she was almost regal in her tears, like a proud warrior queen gazing upon her fallen troops and knowing that they had died in her service.

Chad shook his head ruefully and wondered when the hell he started waxing poetic about crying women. Fuck, if the guys ever heard about this….

He knew ever since the day he met her that Raye had some deep shit going on inside of her, but he could never get past her walls to find out what it was. Their odd friendship always seemed one-sided to him—he was an open book as far as he was concerned, but Raye…she always pushed him away when he got too close. The Raye in front of him was someone he had never met before, someone who didn't bottle up her emotions or shut off when things got too much for her. Finally he got a glimpse of the girl behind the façade, and he realized that she was just as lost as he was.

Chad pulled her into his arms, ignoring her futile struggles as he forced her to relax. He could practically feel her tension vibrating around her, and her muscles were like a tightly-strung bow. He stroked that raven black hair until little by little, her body started to relax against him. They stayed in their embrace for a few moments, relishing every second of it because they somehow knew that this was never going to happen again. At least not any time soon.

When Raye finally pulled away from him, Chad pretended not to notice that his t-shirt was slightly damp just as Raye ignored the blush staining his cheeks. The tender moment they just shared was gone, lost to the winds as though it had never really existed. Perhaps it never really did.

Raye cleared her throat and crossed her arms over her chest. "I know you must think I'm the most irresponsible person in the world for getting behind the wheel of a car I don't know how to drive," she began, her defiant eyes belying her quiet tone, "but I know what it's like to lose someone in a car accident; I never would've put someone else through that if I could help it."

Chad sighed, all the fight going out of him. He knew Raye's mother had died a long time ago, but from what, he didn't know. Her revelation, while not giving him much to go on, said volumes of the pain she still felt today because of her mother's death. Raye didn't open up about herself too often because she didn't trust too many people; letting him get a glimpse into her past was proof that she was beginning to trust him, even if it was just a little.

"I know you didn't mean any harm by it, Raye," he said softly, tucking an errant strand of raven hair behind her ear, "but someone could've gotten hurt today, even if you took every precaution in the world. The fact is, we got lucky today that no one got hurt, but what would we do if someone did? How would we explain that you were driving _my_ car without a license?" He drew her close and rested his forehead against hers. "Do you know how much shit we'd be in if that happened?"

Raye held her breath, unable to concentrate on Chad's mini-lecture despite the fact that she knew every word coming out of his mouth was true. Speaking of his mouth, it was awfully close to hers… She inhaled sharply and mentally ordered herself to be serious. Two people were almost killed today because of her; they'd be in deep shit if their parents ever found out about this…incident. Slowly, Raye felt her priorities shifting. As much as she would've liked to think about nothing else but Chad, the potential consequences of her actions put a huge damper on everything she had previously thought was all-important, including Chad.

"I know," she mumbled, taking the bold step of wrapping her arms around Chad's waist. "I screwed up. If we somehow get in trouble for this, I promise you, I'll take full responsibility for it."

Chad was feeling too good to let her know that she damn well better take full responsibility for everything since it was all her fault. They were so wrapped up in their embrace that they didn't notice a police cruiser slow down to a halt in front of Raye's driveway, nor did they notice that the officer inside the car was studying the make and license of Chad's car and narrowing his eyes at them. They didn't hear the car door slam shut or the footsteps on the driveway heading towards them.

"Excuse me, folks," a genial-sounding voice said, startling Raye and Chad apart. Raye blanched at the sight of the police officer and held onto Chad's arm for support. She swallowed nervously and tried to get her emotions under control.

"What can we do for you, Officer?" she asked, barely noticing that her voice was slightly higher than usual.

The officer scratched his head in a way that made him look like he had unwittingly stumbled upon a crime scene but was too stupid to know what it really was. But Chad knew it was just an act to get them to let their guard down. Underneath that vacant expression were the shrewd eyes of a man who had been on the job longer than Chad had been alive. He drew Raye closer to his side and supported her with an arm around her waist—a show of unity against a man who could see through their bravado just as easily as a peeping Tom could see through an open window.

When he felt Raye trembling against him, Chad shot her a quelling look, silently telling her not to say anything else, and squeezed her arm for reassurance. She swallowed deeply a few times but thankfully she had regained her cool. "What brings you by, Officer?" he asked evenly.

"Well now," he began somewhat sheepishly, as though he hated to inconvenience them. "I just wanted to know whose car that is out there on the driveway."

Raye moved as though to say something but Chad kept a tight hold on her arm. Although he didn't take his eyes off the cop, he knew Raye understood and wouldn't say anything incriminating. So the cop wanted to dick around with them, did he? Well, two can play that game. Chad smiled brightly at the cop and rubbed a hand over his stubbly chin. "She's all mine," he said proudly, gazing fondly at his Corvette. "You should've seen her when I first rescued her from the junk yard. Tires were shot, doors were missing, all the windows were busted," he said, laying on the surfer boy accent a little thick. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Say, you wouldn't happen to be in the market for a 'Vette, would you? Because I can tell you right now, she's not for sale."

The cop blinked for a second, then doubled over in a belly laugh. Chad joined in, gently nudging Raye to do the same. When she did, the sound was high-pitched and very forced. He nudged her again, harder this time, and she stopped completely. The laughter trailed off and the cop dabbed at the corner of his eyes, but Chad knew there were no tears. This guy just really enjoyed fucking around with them.

The cop shook his head and grinned. "Nah, son. I don't want your ride—probably couldn't even afford it on what the county pays me. Actually, I was just wondering if the two of you have been driving around Pine and 16th in the past hour or so, more specifically around the grocery store."

Chad scratched his head thoughtfully, pretending to recall his activities. "We've been here all day, Officer."

The cop strode over to the car and casually leaned against the front fender. "Hood's still warm," he observed when he laid a palm on it. "You sure you kids were here all day?"

Raye squeezed his hand but Chad remained firm. "That's because I've been fixing the engine right here, sir." He sincerely hoped this fucker wouldn't ask him for proof of that because he didn't know what he'd do then.

Beside him, Raye's heart was hammering at triple the normal rate. Shit, she couldn't believe this was happening to them. And that Chad was now _lying_ to a police officer on her behalf. If this situation weren't so dire, she'd be gushing at how romantic the gesture was. But she knew she couldn't do that in front of the cop—it would be giving away too much information. As it was, Chad was practically cutting off the circulation in her arm he was holding her so tight. She was glad for the firm grip, though—without it, her knees probably would've given out by now.

And then, to her horror, another more familiar car turned into the driveway and stopped just behind Chad's. The three of them watched the driver of the SUV park the vehicle, their expressions mixed. The cop had a smug look on his face, Chad's stony expression never wavered while she was sure all the blood had rushed out of her head. Her palms grew clammy as the engine turned off and the door opened.

"Raye, what's going on?" Darien asked, taking in the sight of a police officer leaning on the strange car parked in his driveway and a scruffy-haired _boy_ with his arm wrapped around his daughter. His eyes narrowed while he scrutinized the situation, then went and stood beside Raye; together, he and the kid flanked her on both sides.

The police officer whipped off his mirrored sunglasses and only until then did Chad get a glimpse of two beady eyes, all traces of camaraderie gone from his features. "Sir, I have reason to believe that this car was involved in an incident by the grocery store in which two people were almost run over on the sidewalk."

Oh shit. The bottom of Raye's stomach dropped and she could swear she was going to throw up on the cop's shoe. A part of her wouldn't have minded—the fucker deserved it. She chanced a glance at Chad, and to his credit, his expression remained stony throughout the cop's accusation.

The officer crossed his arms over his barrel chest. Darien's eyes narrowed as the cop turn his feral grin on Raye. Unconsciously, he moved a little forward, trying to shield her from him. "And I heard tell that this young lady here was the one behind the wheel."

Oh, _shit_.

---

**Author's Note:**

A big thank you goes out to Ladysolo for doing such a great job editing this chapter.

Now, not many people may know this, but I'm the manager of a C2 community on FFN called A WISE Decision. Here's the charter (because I'm too lazy to paraphrase it):

_Writing to Improve Standards of Excellence or WISE, a group first started on Aria's Ink, is made up of authors and readers who want to improve the declining standards in fanfiction. Subscribers should strive to leave honest reviews for the archived stories in order to help authors improve their writing, which will then lead to better fanfics for us to read. Stories must be written by authors who adhere to WISE principles, be recommended by a WISE member or are well written. So WISE up!_

If you're interested in subscribing or checking out the stories we have in our archive, visit us at h t t p : w w w . f a n f i c t i o n . n e t / c 2 / 3 0 5 3 / 0 / 1 /.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I look forward to getting some feedback. If you have any questions or concerns about this story so far that you would like me to address (within measure—obviously I won't be divulging any secrets about the plot or the direction this story is heading), let me know in a review and I'll respond through my LJ (see my profile). Thanks again!


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